IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2021 - 41

Opinion
Some Ethical, Legal, and Social
Dimensions of Pandemic Response
Technology
Shuangge Wen
Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China
Mariarosaria Taddeo
University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2JD, U.K.
 Shuangge Wen (SW): The test and trace systems
in operation in many countries are a key strategy
to lower the reproduction rate and control the
virus, with technology enabling measures such as
tracing of close contacts, notifying local alerts, and
venue check-ins using QR codes. From your technological
expertise, how do you see these systems
working, and do you see any alternatives which
should be explored?
Mariarosaria Taddeo (MT): In my work, I'm
most concerned with the ethical and social implications
of these kinds of technological interventions.
When the first app was about to be released, the
Digital Ethics Lab (in which I serve as Deputy Director)
focused on what are the requirements that these
kinds of apps need to respect to ensure that they will
be ethically sound. For these apps, being ethically
sound is important because, as we saw with the failure
of the first app if citizens do not deem the app
ethical, they do not trust it and do not adopt it. In this
case, the efforts, funds, and time invested in developing
the app will turn into missed opportunities;
in turn, this will hinder government reputation. So,
ensuring that these apps respect fundamental values
and rights (i.e., are ethically sound) is vital.
Jeremy Pitt
Imperial College London, London SW7 2BT, U.K.
In a paper published in Nature [1], we identified
a number of requirements to be respected by these
apps. The key point here is that these apps pose
a tradeoff between public health and individual
rights-for example, balancing privacy and tracking
of one's whereabouts. This kind of tradeoff is not
impossible to achieve, because whilst privacy is a
fundamental right, it is not an absolute right. Thus,
you can have more or less privacy. This is shown, for
example, in the GDPR, which makes provisions to
limit individual privacy in order to ensure things like
public health or public safety.
So, in this context, how do we strike the right balance
between competing rights or interests? The first
dimension is necessity: Do we know that this app is
a measure without which we cannot find a solution
for saving lives? If the answer to this question is " no,
there are other solutions " or " there are better solutions, "
this trade-off fails at the first requirement and
we shouldn't proceed further.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2021.3077054
Date of current version: 3 June 2021.
June 2021
The next question is: Does this app offer a proportionate
approach? In other words, are the limitations
to individual rights that the app poses functional to
achieving greater benefits for individuals and society?
Now, we can move onto the third question: Is
the solution offered through this app sufficiently
effective, timely, and accurate? Is there scientific
evidence that this solution, for all its costs, is going
to work? Where there is no scientific evidence, the
answer to this question is problematic.
0278-0097/21©2021 IEEE
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