COVID-19 and Contact Tracing Apps: Ethical Challenges for a Social Experiment on a Global Scale

Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - 2020
Federica Lucivero1, Nina Hallowell1, Stephanie Johnson1, Barbara Prainsack2, Gabrielle Samuel3, Tamar Sharon4
1Ethox and Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus, Oxford, UK
2Department of Political Science, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
3Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, King’s College London, London, UK
4Department of Practical Philosophy & Interdisciplinary Hub for Security, Privacy and Data Governance, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Tóm tắt

AbstractMobile applications are increasingly regarded as important tools for an integrated strategy of infection containment in post-lockdown societies around the globe. This paper discusses a number of questions that should be addressed when assessing the ethical challenges of mobile applications for digital contact-tracing of COVID-19: Which safeguards should be designed in the technology? Who should access data? What is a legitimate role for “Big Tech” companies in the development and implementation of these systems? How should cultural and behavioural issues be accounted for in the design of these apps? Should use of these apps be compulsory? What does transparency and ethical oversight mean in this context? We demonstrate that responses to these questions are complex and contingent and argue that if digital contract-tracing is used, then it should be clear that this is on a trial basis and its use should be subject to independent monitoring and evaluation.

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Journal of Bioethical Inquiry

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