Police should not be given access to data from coronavirus contact-tracing apps
Barrier between health officials and law enforcement is essential for privacy and public trust
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently announced the release of a nationwide contact-tracing app. He remarked that it would be “something you can just download and forget about.”
After demonstrations in response to the killing of George Floyd, the Minneapolis Public Safety Commissioner said police had begun tracking down protesters through a process he analogized to “contact tracing.”
Whether or not contact-tracing apps are or will be used to locate demonstrators, it’s clear that the barrier between public-health officers and police officers is permeable.
Blurring these lines is dangerous on several fronts. New surveillance technologies aimed at combating COVID19 could be co-opted as a foothold to strengthen the surveillance state. In turn, skepticism of state-promoted contact-tracing technologies may lead to insufficient adoption of them by the public, undermining their effectiveness and taking away a potentially important tool to fight the pandemic.
LEGAL PRECEDENTS
This situation isn’t the first time that public health, privacy and law enforcement have collided. In the case of Vancouver Police Department vs. B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, the VPD demanded private medical records from the centre in connection with an aggravated sexual assault case.
The implications of this request were massive. The centre has records on almost all known HIV-positive people in the province that include personal, demographic and even genetic information. Understandably, the centre resisted the request.
The B.C. provincial court held that society’s interest in protecting the confidentiality of the records outweighed the objectives of the police investigation, as disclosure of patient and research information in furtherance of a criminal probe would “erode the centre’s ability to maintain a comprehensive program for HIV-AIDS research and treatment. The benefits to society from that research are immeasurable.”
A similar argument could be made of any request to access data collected to fight COVID-19, such as data collected through contact tracing. It isn’t difficult to conclude that many people would refuse to voluntarily enrol in contact-tracing apps like Alberta’s TraceTogether if they believed their information wasn’t safe, as polling has suggested that privacy is a significant concern with respect to such apps. Without buy-in from a critical mass of users, a contact-tracing app would likely fail.
STRUCTURAL FRAMEWORK
Yet legal arguments to protect our privacy through court proceedings aren’t enough in the post-COVID era. A broader structural framework to ensure privacy for health information is required.
Former Ontario privacy commissioner Dr. Ann
Cavoukian developed a concept known as “privacy-by-design” in the late 1990s.
Though many of the principles of this concept are geared toward the creation of information systems, they could well be applied to a data framework. The most pertinent foundational principles are as follows: the approach to privacy should be proactive rather than reactive, and privacy and transparency should be the default settings.
If properly crafted, a statute could make the government’s COVID-19 tracking efforts achieve privacy by design; it could ensure that any information collected for the purposes of COVID-19 surveillance be used only for health purposes, precluding use for any other purpose.
This would not only make privacy the default setting, but would also be a proactive approach, acting to prevent the state from engaging in violations of privacy, rather than trying to reverse the damage in court after it has been done.
Furthermore, a statute could ensure improved transparency by mandating that users be asked for permission each time before any identifiable data about them is used, informing them of the purpose of that use and then notifying them again once that information has been used.
NEW CRISIS SOLUTIONS
The COVID-19 crisis is unprecedented, as are the measures we have collectively taken in response. We are all understandably keen to take whatever action is necessary to bring this virus to heel. Yet we must also remain vigilant.
Participation in contact-tracing apps will be voluntary, but enough people need to use the apps for them to be effective. Temporary impingements on rights and liberties all too often become permanent. As many have pointed out, this isn’t the last global pandemic nor, given the climate crisis, the last major catastrophe that will occur in our lifetimes.
The demand for increased bio-surveillance will grow in order to prevent this, and future pandemics. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, of course, contains provisions protecting our privacy as well as our right to life, liberty and security of person. However, it’s clear that in order to realize these rights, further action is needed.
The barrier between public health officers and police must stay intact. The challenges we face in the months and years ahead will not be easy to overcome, but we must face them with open eyes and to ensure we avoid an Orwellian pandemic in which we entirely lose control of our right to privacy.
OTTAWA — Canada contributed $300 million on Saturday toward the international fight against COVID-19 as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined fellow leaders, activists and philanthropists in calling for a vaccine to be distributed to the world’s neediest people.
Trudeau announced the new funds in another virtual international fundraiser — this one sponsored by an organization, Global Citizen, that raised almost $9.5 billion in pledges.
“COVID-19 has changed the lives of people everywhere, and it has highlighted inequalities around the world,” Trudeau said. “None of us have been spared from the effects of COVID-19 and none of us can beat it alone.”
Canada’s contribution includes $180 million to address the immediate humanitarian and development impacts of the pandemic and $120 million toward a new initiative called the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator.
The ACT Accelerator was created in April by the World Health Organization, the French government, the European Commission and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to ensure equitable access to medical treatments.
It supports organizations, health professionals and businesses in their efforts to develop a vaccine, as well as drug therapies and diagnostic tools to battle the pandemic.
Trudeau said the pandemic has hit vulnerable populations especially hard and the ACT Accelerator will ensure that when a vaccine is found, it will be able to reach all the people who need it.
Sir Andrew Witty, the former chief executive of the British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, said a vaccine would normally take 10 to 15 years to develop, but the COVID-19 outbreak is forcing companies and universities to find one or more viable vaccines in one-tenth that time, or quicker.
Witty said the pandemic has forced unprecedented co-operation between “industrial partners, biotech companies, government, universities” to swiftly find new treatments as well as a vaccine.
“No country can be an island in this situation.” Witty said last week. “It’s not great to be the one country who’s safe if all of the people you trade with are still struggling because the trade is not going to be there.”
There has been widespread concern that President Donald Trump might adopt a go-it-alone approach if a vaccine were discovered in the U.S. first.
However, Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, offered an olive branch Saturday when she announced Washington’s new pledge of almost $750 million.