Balancing Public Health and Civil Liberties: Privacy Aspects of Contact-Tracing Technologies

ABSTRACT

Around the world, different jurisdictions, workplaces, and schools have taken wildly different approaches to contact tracing in response to COVID-19, striking varying balances between public health and safety and privacy and civil liberties. This article discusses contact-tracing technologies, with a particular focus on the privacy aspects of contact tracing and exposure-notification apps. It describes the three main categories of contact-tracing apps, namely centralized location-centralized Bluetooth-, and decentralized Bluetooth-based apps. This article observes lower adoption in the United States than in Europe and briefly considers what this microcosm could teach us about the intersection between privacy and technology. © 2003-2012 IEEE.