Balancing Privacy and Public Health in the COVID-19 Era
The desire to resume “normal life” has brought issues surrounding privacy into sharp relief. Most experts agree that some form of contact tracing will be necessary in order to safely reopen the economy in the absence of a vaccine. Several countries have turned to some form of geolocation tracking from smart phones to identify interactions with potentially infected individuals. In the US, major tech companies have been working on bluetooth based solutions. Widespread adoption of these tracking tools will be necessary to contain the spread of the coronavirus, but legitimate privacy concerns surrounding these solutions may discourage people from opting into such a system, causing doubts about their efficacy.
On Thursday, May 14 our panel of law and public health experts offered some guidance to policymakers working through these complex and pertinent issues.
Featuring:
Jane Bambauer, Professor of Law, The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law
Woodrow Hartzog, Professor of Law and Computer Science, Northeastern University School of Law
Daniel Barth-Jones, Assistant Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, Columbia Mailman School of Public Health
Moderator: James Cooper, Professor of Law, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School and Director, Program on Economics & Privacy
Click here to listen to the full recording of the event.
“I worry about undervaluing information flows to kids. . . Kids shouldn’t deserve any less First Amendment protections than grownups. . . . Once we start thinking about using COPPA as a tool to restrict advertising to kids, then I do think we’re getting into First Amendment land.”