Journal article
The ethics of instantaneous contact tracing using mobile phone apps in the control of the COVID-19 pandemic
- Abstract:
- In this paper we discuss ethical implications of the use of mobile phone apps in the control of the COVID-19 pandemic. Contact tracing is a well-established feature of public health practice during infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics. However, the high proportion of pre-symptomatic transmission in COVID-19 means that standard contact tracing methods are too slow to stop the progression of infection through the population. To address this problem, many countries around the world have deployed or are developing mobile phone apps capable of supporting instantaneous contact tracing. Informed by the on-going mapping of ‘proximity events’ these apps are intended both to inform public health policy and to provide alerts to individuals who have been in contact with a person with the infection. The proposed use of mobile phone data for ‘intelligent physical distancing’ in such contexts raises a number of important ethical questions. In our paper, we outline some ethical considerations that need to be addressed in any deployment of this kind of approach as part of a multidimensional public health response. We also, briefly, explore the implications for its use in future infectious disease outbreaks.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, 158.5KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1136/medethics-2020-106314
Authors
- Publisher:
- BMJ
- Journal:
- Journal of Medical Ethics More from this journal
- Volume:
- 46
- Issue:
- 7
- Pages:
- 427-431
- Publication date:
- 2020-05-04
- Acceptance date:
- 2020-04-23
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1473-4257
- ISSN:
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0306-6800
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1102206
- Local pid:
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pubs:1102206
- Deposit date:
-
2020-04-28
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Parker et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2020
- Rights statement:
- © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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