Digital Surveillance of COVID-19: Privacy and Equity Considerations

In this paper, we examine the potentially deleterious effects of surveillance on vulnerable Canadians. A wide range of digital surveillance technologies have either been deployed or considered for deployment both in Canada and around the world in response to the international emergency created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of these technologies are highly effective in predicting or identifying individual cases and/or outbreaks; others assist in tracing contacts or enforcing compliance with quarantine and isolation measures. However, there are necessarily risks associated with their deployment. First are the infringements on privacy rights of citizens and groups. Second, these technologies run the risk of ‘surveillance creep’ in the context of their desired usage for purposes and in time frames other than for fighting a pandemic. Third, some of these technologies impact more severely on members of racialized and socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. We argue that, without addressing the impact that digital technologies have on vulnerable populations in relation to COVID-19, legislators risk deepening the inequalities that create the very conditions for transmission of the virus and that put vulnerable persons at greater risk of contracting the disease

It’s Time for Canada to Follow Ontario’s Critical Care Triage Protocol

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced health-care policy-makers across the world to face the same gut-wrenching question: if critical care wards become overcrowded, to whom do we give potentially life-saving resources and whom do we deny

La COVID-19 et les protocoles de triage

Nous sommes peut-être à seulement quelques mois d’une « deuxième vague » de la COVID-19. Dans les provinces, des décideurs politiques et des cliniciens travaillent d’arrache-pied pour préparer des protocoles de triage en soins intensifs éthiques et scientifiquement fondés, afin de parer au risque que le système de santé soit submergé par la demande de ressources. Le Québec, en tant que seule province disposant d’un protocole de triage approuvé, est un leader à cet égard

Digital Surveillance of COVID-19: Privacy and Equity Considerations

In this paper, we examine the potentially deleterious effects of surveillance on vulnerable Canadians. A wide range of digital surveillance technologies have either been deployed or considered for deployment both in Canada and around the world in response to the international emergency created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of these technologies are highly effective in predicting or identifying individual cases and/or outbreaks; others assist in tracing contacts or enforcing compliance with quarantine and isolation measures. However, there are necessarily risks associated with their deployment. First are the infringements on privacy rights of citizens and groups. Second, these technologies run the risk of ‘surveillance creep’ in the context of their desired usage for purposes and in time frames other than for fighting a pandemic. Third, some of these technologies impact more severely on members of racialized and socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. We argue that, without addressing the impact that digital technologies have on vulnerable populations in relation to COVID-19, legislators risk deepening the inequalities that create the very conditions for transmission of the virus and that put vulnerable persons at greater risk of contracting the disease