The fifth and final webinar in the series on Digital Cooperation During COVID-19 and Beyond brought together a stellar line-up of expert panelists to examine the complex interplay between digital health technologies, like tracking and tracing apps, and the need to guard against systematic prolonged surveillance of citizens by governments or private organizations, or the unauthorized sharing of their private data.
Kicking off the session, co-host Fabrizio Hochschild, Under Secretary-General and Special Advisor at the United Nations, reminded 300+ participants that the human rights dimension of any technology that can provide access to people's personal data and movements must always be considered, noting concerns in many countries that emergency surveillance measures adopted during the crisis may be maintained once the emergency is over.
In her opening remarks, BDT Director Doreen Bogdan-Martin observed that the COVID crisis has demonstrated how increasingly critical digital technologies are for public health, playing a vital role in monitoring, disease control and medical research. "But at the same time," she said, "the use of digital technologies is raising real concerns over the need to protect privacy; to ensure accessibility and inclusiveness; and to enable interoperability between apps and systems."
Her opening remarks were followed by introductory comments by special guest speak Her Excellency Kyung-wha Kang, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea, who outlined her country's very successful response to the pandemic, which to date has claimed only 259 lives. She said Korea's proactive policy of testing, tracing and treatment, together with a commitment to transparency and public information, had helped maintain trust and greatly facilitated the fight against the virus. She also noted, however, that extra care needs to be taken with tracing technology, recounting the recent emergence of online hate speech against minority groups after a new outbreak linked to Korea's gay community. The government had responded quickly and effectively, she said, by further anonymizing testing, and limiting the gathering of health data exclusively to tracking the movements of each individual tested.
An energetic panel discussion ensued, featuring experts from both the human rights community and the medical fraternity, including: Dunja Mijatovic, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights ; Bernardo Mariano, Director of Dig ital Health and Innovation, WHO; Steve Crown, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Human Rights, Microsoft ; Yoshua Bengio, Professor, Scientific Director of Mila, Université de Montréal; Urs Gasser, Executive Director, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, University of Harvard; Jean-Pierre Hubaux, Head of Laboratory for Data Security, EPFL; and Nanjira Sambuli, Member of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation.
Doreen Bogdan-Martin closed the session, and the webinar series, by emphasizing the need to ensure that efforts to advance digital solutions never impact on citizens' fundamental rights and freedoms.
"The way we implement and use digital technologies to promote public health must remain compliant with the rule of law, and respect an agreed set of core ethical values," she said. "Privacy and data protection are paramount. In our scramble to respond to this unprecedented global threat, we must not lose sight of the need to protect hard-won rights. If carelessly cast aside during a period of panic, they may prove very hard to retrieve, once the immediate crisis is over."
