Confidentiality of health data in contact tracing systems during the Covid-19 pandemic in France

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 emerged in late 2019 and had become, within a few months, the focus of global attention due to its high transmissibility and its ability to cause acute respiratory failure, especially in the elderly and in people with comorbidities.1 Most governments, faced with a pandemic of a magnitude unprecedented in the 21st century,2 adopted emergency measures to reduce or stop the spread of the virus. Contact tracing is a well-established practice that consists of identifying people who have come into contact with infected people. During the Covid-19 pandemic, contact tracing was carried out using new methods. Manual contact tracing (MCT), in which the key stage consists of interviewing infected subjects in order to identify their contacts,3 has involved the collection and recording of data in electronic databases.4 In parallel, digital contact tracing (DCT), in which notification of infection risk uses a smartphone application, was implemented for the first time in a pandemic although the principle had already been described.5