Te following information is an outlook of the document issued by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) regarding theTRACKING AND TRACING COVID: PROTECTING PRIVACY AND DATA WHILE USING APPS AND BIOMETRICS Its only objective is to inform:
Key Takeaways
Governments are collaborating with telecommunication service providers to access geolocation data to track population movements.
- The German telecommunications provider Deutsche Telekom is providing anonymised “movement flows” data of its users to the Robert-Koch Institute, a research institute and government agency responsible for disease control and prevention.
- Vodafone Group’sFive Point Planto address COVID-19 includes providing governments with large anonymised data sets (such as an aggregated and anonymous heat map for the Lombardy region) to help authorities better understand population movements.
- The European Commission is currently liaising with eight European telecommunications operators toobtain from them anonymised aggregate mobile geolocation data, in order to coordinate measures tracking the spread of COVID-19. To address privacy concerns, the data will be deleted once the crisis is over.
New mobile applications for COVID-19 “tracking” are also being launched:
Trace Together Developed by the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, using Bluetooth, this app tracks individuals who have been exposed to the virus.
Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing Over 130 scientists, technologists and experts from eight European countries–including France, Germany and Italy–took part in a non-profit initiative that developed an open source app which analyses Bluetooth signals between mobile phonesto detect users who have been in close proximity to each other. The app temporarily stores that encrypted data locally, and if the users later test positive for COVID-19, it can alert anyone who has been around the infected individual in the preceding days, whilekeeping all users’ identities protected.
Koreas´Tracking App Funded by the Korean governmentthe Self-quarantine Safety App, is a GPS-based tracking app used by public authorities to provide information on COVID-19, including quarantine guidelines,and to prevent possible violationsof self-quarantine orders.The app can also be used forself-checking and voluntary reportingto health care authorities. The data collected is not shared withthird parties.
Covid 19 Symptom Tracker The aim of this app developed in the United Kingdom as a partnershipbetweendoctors and scientists at King’s College London, a health data science company.
Apple and Google partner on COVID-19 contact tracing technology
Tracking apps can embody varying degrees of privacy and data protection
Leveraging biometric data adds both benefits and challenges
Privacy-by-design can help address the risks
Key recommendations
Digital technologies provide powerful tools for governments in their fight to control the COVID-19 pandemic, but their privacy and data protection implications must be recognised. Contact-tracing apps should be implemented with full transparency, in consultation with major stakeholders, robust privacy-by-design protections, and through open source projects (where appropriate). Governments should consider:
- The legal basis of the use of these technologies, which varies according to the type of data collected.
- Whether the use of these technologies and the subsequent data gathering is proportionate, and consider how the data is stored, processed, shared and with whom (including what security and privacy-by-design protocols are implemented).
- The quality of the data collected and whether it is fit for purpose.
- Whether the public is well-informed and the approaches adopted are implemented with full transparency and accountability.
- The time period within which more invasive technologies that collect personal data may be used to combat the crisis. Data should be retained only for so long as is necessary to serve the specific purpose for which it was collected.