Privacy Experts Express Concern as Google and Apple Support Development of Contact Tracing Apps to Help Combat the Current Health Crisis
Last week, Apple and Google released a new health API in a joint effort to aid efforts to control the spread of COVID-19. The contact tracing tool will help public health departments track infected individuals and provide notifications to those who unknowingly came into contact with them. However, the much-anticipated tool has already caused concerns among privacy experts with lingering questions about how health data will be used and protected.
If you’ve updated your phone’s operating system since May 20th, then your phone already has the capability to run apps using the new API, but its developers are clear that data will not be collected without permission. In a joint statement, Google and Apple said, “Each user gets to decide whether or not to opt-in to Exposure Notifications; the system does not collect or use location from the device; and if a person is diagnosed with COVID-19, it is up to them whether or not to report that in the public health app. User adoption is key to success and we believe that these strong privacy protections are also the best way to encourage use of these apps.”
Despite hopes that it will be instrumental in fighting the virus’s spread, the use of big data to fight the coronavirus has been roundly criticized by the ACLU. Acknowledging that private companies will likely be the ones developing virus-tracking apps for municipal health departments, the advocacy group has published privacy guidelines for companies developing COVID apps. Those guidelines include directives to only collect the data absolutely necessary for public health purposes and delete that data once the pandemic has ended.
In addition to non-governmental groups, state and federal lawmakers have also proposed various regulations addressing privacy during the pandemic. Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans have competing versions of COVID privacy bills which were both proposed earlier this month. But with dueling federal legislation and state and local government resources stretched thin by the virus, advocacy groups and the plaintiffs’ bar may be the most likely enforcers of consumer privacy.
As the world continues to battle the current pandemic, public-private partnerships will be valuable to help combat this health crisis and strike the right balance between innovative technical efforts and individual privacy rights. But given mounting privacy concerns and regulatory efforts, developers should be cautious about maintaining the privacy of user data as they jump in to help.