Contact tracing apps and human rights – the role of the business sector to prevent a digital rights pandemic

 

Contact tracing apps and human rights – the role of the business sector to prevent a digital rights pandemic

A webinar presented by the IBA Legal Policy and Research Unit and IBA Business Human Rights Committee

supported by

DATE 25 June 2020

On 11 March 2020, with over 294,000 cases worldwide, Covid-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). In order to reduce the contagion and following WHO recommendations, states have implemented non-pharmaceutical measures and conducted outbreak investigations, including contact tracing and management, surveillance and visualisation of chains of transmission.

These activities have been supported by new technologies, such as geolocalisation apps, facial recognition and AI-based software for the enforcement of quarantine. This is the first pandemic in which technology can support the containment and mitigation of the contagion and its deployment presents new challenges, together with great opportunities.

These are data-intensive tools and, while the right to privacy is clearly being restricted, all human rights could potentially be affected. Moreover, contact tracing apps are often the result of a public-private partnership and the private sector can and should play a fundamental role in promoting a proportionate and rights-compatible response to this global health crisis.

This Webinar will focus on contact tracing apps and technologies deployed to address Covid-19 and on their impact on human rights. The following issues will be discussed:

  • The existing models of contact tracing apps and their potential impact on human rights
  • Human rights safeguards under international law (legality, necessity and proportionality test)
  • The role of the business sector in the promotion of rights-compatible responses to the pandemic

Download the IBA Digital Contact tracing report

Sara Carnegie

Sara Carnegie
Director of Legal Projects, International Bar Association

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Maria Pia Sacco

Maria Pia Sacco
Senior Legal Advisor, Legal Policy & Research Unit, International Bar Association

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Anurag Bana

Anurag Bana
Senior Legal Advisor, Legal Policy & Research Unit, International Bar Association, London

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Dr Theodora A Christou

Dr Theodora A Christou
CCLS, School of Law, Queen Mary University of London, London

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Mario Guglielmetti

Mario Guglielmetti
Legal Officer, European Data Protection Supervisor, Brussels

'In his personal capacity'

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Markus Muhs

Markus Muhs
Partner at Clifford Chance

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Mark Stephens

Mark Stephens
Howard Kennedy; Vice Chair, IBA Human Rights Institute Council and Independent Chair of the Global Network Initiative, London

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