Coronavirus: Is Big Brother Watching Us?
We are in a fight. Humankind is in a fight with a fire called Coronavirus. Humankind versus the virus. This fire caused a global crisis by killing 20,601 people only in the U.S and 109,823 people across the world until now.
It will keep on spreading and eventually taking more lives unless we take action quickly and mindfully.
According to the Guardian, developing a vaccine for this epidemic will take 18 months. So far, we’ve seen that the most effective weapon we have has been widespread social distancing, which unfortunately comes with its consequences, such as economic side effects that may affect us nationwide.
Living in the 21st century, we have a powerful tool, technology, which appears to be the most efficient way to beat our enemy.
For, as Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said: “You cannot fight a fire blindfolded.” Technology is what can take off our blindfold as it includes data science.
In this blog post, you’ll be reading about these sub-topics:
- Why do we need data collection?
- Data ethics and surveillance
- Should we trust the government?
1. WHY DO WE NEED DATA COLLECTION?
In this once-in-a-century pandemic, people become infectious before they show symptoms, and every infected person spreads the disease to at least two more people. Speaking about the U.S specifically, there’s a significant delay between infection and hospitalization. (around 11 days)
Besides, very little testing is being done, and testing results aren’t being adequately shared.
Being a societal issue, COVID-19 needs to be handled as soon as possible in the best way we can. Taking advantage of digital data and relying on it to control the outbreak seems like the most reasonable thing to do at this moment.
Slowing down the rate of the infection through data, we can give hospitals more time to cope with the infected patients, which we call “flattening the curve.”
2. DATA ETHICS AND SURVEILLANCE
Collecting data not only will show us whether we are infected, but it will also alert us if we have been in touch with someone known to have Coronavirus.
These two sound excellent to flatten the curve and minimize the spread. Yet giving the government permission to monitor our blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature, we will never know if that data will ever be deleted or it will be kept as anonymized.
Identifying our biometric data, they will see the way we react at any moment. If they start gathering information, they’ll get to know us better than we know ourselves. Also, we can never be sure whether they’ll manipulate us using our data.
Did that feel like you are re-reading 1984 by George Orwell? That fear is reasonable and healthy- but we still need to build mutual understanding amid this global crisis through trust.
3. SHOULD WE TRUST THE GOVERNMENT?
Although it is understandable to see growing concerns about data privacy, uniting as a nation to get through this outbreak nationally is the only readily-viable option.
In return for our trust, the government needs to assure us that the data is used ethically. We have seen similar examples in South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. All of these countries used data effectively by not only making tracking applications but also relying on honest reporting and ensuring that they respected the people’s privacy.
According to what I have read in an article, establishing independent ethical committees or data trusts might be an excellent way to build trust between the government and society.
Rosistsa Zaimova, in her article, says, for independent ethical committees:
Their role will be to create data governance mechanisms to find the balance between competing public interests, while protecting individual privacy. Examples of such rules include setting up clear guidelines on the purpose and timeline for the use of the data, defining clear processes for the access, processing and termination of use of personal data at the end of the crisis.
To sum up, we are all responsible for establishing an environment of mutual trust unless we want this pandemic to take longer and keep ruining our lives.
Because Gwendolyn Brooks says:
“We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”
Thank you for reading!
Here are some links you can check out if you are interested:
