EU warns govts against using virus-tracing apps for surveillance over privacy breach fear

As governments worldwide deploy mobile apps for the purpose of contact tracing for containment of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the European Union has warned against the mass surveillance via such technology, as per reports. EU indicated that such a system would allow officials, hackers, or private companies to spy on people, resulting in a “catastrophic” erosion of public trust. 

EU justice commissioner Didier Reynders, as of May 13, said while speaking at a conference that such apps need to be automatically de-activated once the crisis was over with. Further, he said, expressing concerns over state surveillance, that individuals will keep control of their data, and the government would have to take a step back on “contact tracing”.

Reiterating the risks such smartphone apps posed on data privacy, the deputies discussed its perils in nations like Israel, Singapore, and South Korea that are using a combination of location data, video camera footage, and credit card information, to track COVID-19 in their countries, according to a media report.  

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Countries used cameras, digital barcodes

In communist China, the government reportedly installed CCTV cameras outside of the apartment doors of presumptive cases under a 14-day quarantine to ensure they didn’t flout measures. Moreover, digital barcodes on mobile apps were sued to monitor the health of mildly symptomatic cases. Therefore, surveillance of individuals for the containment of transmission could prove to be challenging for some governments to scale back down in terms of misuse, the right group proposed, as per media reports.

“How we do this, what safeguards we put in, what fundamental rights we look very carefully at,” will influence other places, said Michael Veale, a lecture in digital rights at University College London. “Countries do look to Europe and campaigners look to Europe, and will expect the continent to take an approach that preserves privacy,” he said.   

In recent years, the European Union (EU) reportedly led the way globally to protect the citizen’s digital privacy by introducing strict laws for tech companies and websites that gained access to personal information. Therefore, the EU warned that automated solutions in the form of contact tracing apps that made an otherwise labour-intensive procedure simple was done away with. 

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(Image and Inputs from AP)