Introduction: Privacy and Pandemics

Mark Taylor,Stacey Steele,Megan Richardson

doi:10.5204/lthj.1924

Abstract

This set of articles in this special issue illustrate a number of ways that the realities of a global pandemic may challenge different perspectives on privacy protection and the appropriate relationship with other rights and responsibilities. They arose from a virtual roundtable, held on 15 June 2020 at Melbourne Law School, under the aegis of the Privacy and Pandemics Information Network. The network was formed as a rapid response to the overwhelming number of privacy issues being raised almost simultaneously by, or as a result of, the various government and private actor attempts to deal with COVID-19 in Australia and around the world.

Highlights

Pulling Together or Pulling Apart?When we began writing this introduction, we were experiencing another strict lockdown in Melbourne, Australia
The key question—at least among privacy scholars such as ourselves—was, could these processes be justified in the context of a global pandemic?. We introduce this special issue on Privacy and Pandemics by noting how difficult it is to answer definitively even the first half of this question: does asking people to write given name and telephone number on a piece of paper in a public space, and leaving that open to view and potential capture by others, constitute a prima facie interference with privacy? The answer to this question will likely turn on an interpretation of terms such as ‘voluntary’, ‘public space’ and ‘private information’ and the relevance of such terms to the operative idea of privacy and its individual and social importance.[3]
Such an outcome suggests a lost opportunity for conceptions of privacy, just when we become crucially dependant on the collective ability to gather and process accurate data (being literally, for some, a matter of life and death), and means that we are all the losers

Summary

Pulling Together or Pulling Apart?

When we began writing this introduction, we were experiencing another strict lockdown in Melbourne, Australia. To give just one example, when venturing into a cafe or restaurant after the 2020 lockdown, it soon became a familiar experience to be asked to provide a name and contact number for the purposes of ‘contact tracing’. This process for identifying close and casual contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases quickly evolved into a relatively sophisticated process, entailing a mix of QR codes, smartphones and digital platforms.

Privacy and Pandemics

Opportunities for Privacy in a Pandemic

Introduction

What About the Name and Number on the Clipboard?