EU Wants Coordinated Coronavirus Tracking Apps to Protect User Data
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the European Commission has recommended that European states take a coordinated approach on digital tools developed to fight the spread of COVID-19, in order to ensure there are no privacy and data protection compromises.
Across the continent, many states are developing their own applications. Ireland is planning its own app, and Germany intends to launch one “within weeks.” The United Kingdom, which has since left the EU, is also developing its own application, but is apparently in “close consultation” with the European Union.
The Commission believes a unified approach would be better as it would avoid “the fragmentation of the internal market,” according to the Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton.
The Commission hopes to introduce specifications to ensure that the mobile applications are effective, that “governance mechanisms [are] applied by public health authorities” and that data, such as anonymous and aggregated mobile location data, is shared with relevant public bodies.
While many applications will exist, they could all be based on the same code – one that allows tracking while still complying with GDPR.
It is likely that these apps would follow Singapore’s example, and produce an application that uses Bluetooth to calculate people’s proximity to each other.
Speaking to the BBC, Wojciech Wiewiorowski, the European Data Protection Supervisor, said that such tools “seem to be a useful path.” Any measures that infringe upon privacy rights must be temporary, limited in purpose, have restricted access to data, and have an explicit purpose.
One group, the Pan-European Privacy Preserving Proximity Tracing initiative, is already developing such code that would inform users users via an app that they had been in close proximity with someone confirmed to have the coronavirus, reports CNET. This would be done via user aliases that change frequently.
Another group is developing a similar protocol, called Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (DP-PPT). As TechCrunch reports, this group believes its protocol is better because it does not rely on pseudonymized IDs centralized on a server,
Concerns over coronavirus apps stems from the fear that world governments are using the crisis to introduce “extraordinary new surveillance powers,” according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“If the public grants such powers to the government, these powers must expire when the crisis ends, contain strict anti-bias rules, and be subject to strict safeguards and audits. Some technologies are so invasive and dangerous to a democratic society that EFF opposes their use,” the EFF states.
In the United States, many tools have been developed to track the coronavirus. The CDC developed a chatbot using Microsoft’s AI to answer questions about COVID-19, Facebook has expanded its community features and is surveying users about symptoms, and Google has developed a website to guide Americans through the pandemic at the (muddled) behest of President Trump.
