Security News > 2020 > May > Virus Apps Expose Tension Between Privacy and Need for Data
As more governments turn to tracing apps in the fight against the coronavirus, a deep-rooted tension between the need for public health information and privacy rights has been thrust into the spotlight.
China, where the outbreak was first detected, rolled out several apps using either geolocation via mobile networks or data compiled from train and airline travel or motorway checkpoints.
More than half of 2,000 people surveyed by the Brookings Institution in the United States feared contact-tracing apps would violate their privacy.
"Are new technologies becoming more efficient? Certainly. Is it dangerous? Certainly" said Benjamin Queyriaux, an epidemiologist and former medical adviser to NATO. The European Commission has said data harvested through contact-tracing apps must be encrypted and cannot be stored in a centralised database.
In France, which has spurned tracing technology offered by Google and Apple, the CNIL privacy watchdog has approved a government-backed app that will be voluntary to download. Experts in Norway have warned that its government-backed app does not sufficiently protect privacy, and an Australian app that allows people's data to be accessed by health officials has also raised privacy concerns.