The Ethicality of the Fight Against COVID-19 using Big Data
Limited only in China until late 2019, the COVID-19 virus has now catapulted the world into a huge crisis mode. Businesses are down, schools are shut, death rates and poverty are peaking.. there’s just too much going on. Amidst all the distress, researchers are trying to find a solution through the use of big data. For years, big data analytics has been used to track locations, advertisements, fraud detection, and now, scientists are trying to make the best use of it to fight the worldwide pandemic.
How is Big Data being used to fight the COVID-19 virus?
Big data, in simple terms, means voluminous complex data sets that cannot be managed by traditional data processing software. It has made it a lot easier and cost-effective for the identification of new cases, travel history tracking of patients, recording symptoms, early-stage identification of the virus, and so on which has been very helpful to flatten the coronavirus curve to a large extent. There are apps like the COVID Symptom Tracker that has access to real-time data of people that can help decision-makers to plan better strategic measures such as social distancing. We are alerted about the hotspot areas accordingly so that the spread of the virus can be minimized. A contact tracing project by MIT is underway, which allows health care providers to download the names of people who were in close contact with an infected person during the relevant time-frame. These efforts using big data help to predict the risk of infection, predict treatment outcomes, prevent wider spreads, and prepare for future risks at an individual and community level. The application of big data analytics based on clinical symptoms and travel history was successful in Taiwan, which had only 42 cases even though it is only 81 miles away from China.
With the wide use of big data arises questions regarding ethics and privacy concerns. What if our personal information such as location data, contact number, or any other details is misused? The sensitivity of the same data can vary from context to context. For example, location data might be very helpful for epidemiological analysis to fight the pandemic but the same demographical data can threaten the rule of law and democracy in the context of a political crisis. Ethicality doesn’t entail just how your data is being used but also informing what the data will be used for, publishing publicly available results and how decisions have been made on your data. Take the example of StayHomeSafe, an app used in Hong Kong to check potential breaches of quarantine by users. Though the privacy commissioner stated his satisfaction with the collection of personal data standing on the various audits, security, and privacy assessments carried out on the app, no results or the extent of the audits and assessments have been made publicly available nor have the auditors themselves been named.
Thus, adherence to appropriate governance frameworks is particularly relevant in the current crisis hour. To address the ethical issues, proper legislation will be needed, especially in the long run, to regulate proper data collection and expiration, result publishing models, and clarify the public’s issues of mistrust.
References:
Duff-Brown, B. (2020). How Taiwan Used Big Data, Transparency and a Central Command to Protect Its People from Coronavirus. Stanford University. Retrieved from https://fsi.stanford.edu/news/how-taiwan-used-big-data-transparency-central-command-protect-its-people-coronavirus
Haleem, A., Javaid, M., Khan, I., & Vaishya, R. (2020). Significant Applications of Big Data in COVID-19 Pandemic. Indian Journal Of Orthopaedics, 54(4), 526–528. doi: 10.1007/s43465–020–00129-z
Shah, J. & Shah, N. (2020). Fighting Coronavirus with Big Data. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2020/04/fighting-coronavirus-with-big-data
Tanner, W. (2020). COVID-19: Managing Data Ethics in a Pandemic [Blog]. Retrieved from https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=05102dd6-f92c-433a-a95e-1d3df016c7df
What Is Big Data? | Oracle Australia. (2020). Retrieved 17 September 2020, from https://www.oracle.com/au/big-data/what-is-big-data.html
Zwitter, A., & Gstrein, O. (2020). Big data, privacy and COVID-19 — learning from humanitarian expertise in data protection. Journal Of International Humanitarian Action, 5(1). doi: 10.1186/s41018–020–00072–6