Thursday, March 26, 2020

Personal data comes into play in health emergency

Digital tracking of mobile users is advancing in Europe as a measure to stop the spread of Covid-19: this raised the alarm about the friction with the General Data Protection Regulation, even though CE assured it is legal. In Latin America, Paraguay and Peru similar options are analized, while Chile, Argentina and Colombia at the moment discard them. How were the experiences in China and South Korea that contributed to combat contagion. The WHO warned that there is enthusiasm for these initiatives, but the regulations on data protection should not be ignored.

The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday valued ICTs as a tool to stop the spread of the virus, but at the same time warned that the collection of information should not go against current regulations on data protection. The world body responded in this way to a debate in the making, which goes hand in hand with the fight against the disease worldwide: in any case, the data that operators have about their users should be used to contain the spread. At a press conference yesterday, Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, said the pandemic is the first of the century to use "the full power of information, technology, social media and artificial intelligence". Although all this enthusiasm and innovation must be carefully structured to deliver products and services that are truly useful to workers on the front lines.

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