Implementation of Emerging Technologies in Pandemic Situations: Contact Tracing vs. Privacy in Canada

The COVID-19 pandemic required unprecedented efforts to address the emergency situation in public health in all countries around the world. Governments turned their hopes to technology and its potential to offer reliable solutions in controlling the virus. Contact-tracing apps were introduced to assist health officials in tracking down exposures after infected individuals were identified. Despite the benefits, the design of tracking apps was accompanied by many privacy concerns. The objective of this chapter is to survey what strategies of digital contact tracing have been used to control the spread of COVID-19, what are some of the privacy discussions that surround the choices for those strategies and whether those choices are embedded in the legal requirements of privacy protection. The chapter argues that privacy should be a central feature of the conversations surrounding the implementation of contact-tracing technology—every decision-making should always take place within the legal boundaries of privacy protection. The Canadian case serves as a good example because the public policy makers did not respond to the health crisis by compromising privacy rights for the benefit of protecting public health, even if the situation could have favored such decision. The chapter offers an exploratory review of current measures for COVID-19 contact tracing employed in Canada with the aim of analyzing how privacy concerns shaped the Canadian decision-making in adopting particular measures. The chapter concludes that it is in under situations of crisis when a country’s democracy is put to a test—policy makers will fail the test if they aim to achieve legitimate goals through controversial means, especially if those means weaken fundamental human rights. Undermining privacy in the name of protecting public health could have dangerous implications for future public policy making. It could open the door to the abuse of government powers in times of crisis, and once the crisis is over the changes to our privacy rights could become permanent.