Privacy Considerations of Location Tracking in Social Welfare Applications

Abstract

COVID-19 rapidly spread worldwide starting in December 2019, reaching its peak during the first quarter of 2021. As of October 28, 2021, COVID-19 deaths have surpassed 5,000,000 globally, with the highest death tolls in the United States, Brazil, and India. Governments scrambled to combat the pandemic using various techniques, including social welfare and pandemic tracking applications. This scramble accelerated the progress of the digital revolution through the proliferation of numerous social welfare applications worldwide. These applications are used for tracking vaccination status, contact tracing, social distancing, symptoms, and positive cases, as well as for enforcing quarantine and lockdown policies and detecting violations. Artificial intelligence and other technology advances raise concerns about security, privacy, and equity since many of these applications work with personal information from one’s health records, employment information, and location data. This paper examines such applications in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and the United States. Develop best practices that can be followed to enhance the security of and equitable access to social applications.