COVID-19: UC Scientist assesses the pros and cons of mobile apps in the fight against the pandemic

With the possibility of using mobile applications to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic, is it possible to reconcile the advantages of these digital tools in an epidemiological surveillance scenario with the risks to users' security and privacy?

Alexandra Aragão, a researcher at the Institute of Law of the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra, thinks so. Despite the risks inherent in the use of these technologies, if the ethical rules already developed by the European Union are correctly applied, Aragão believes that society will win by breaking the chains of infection and limiting the spread of the virus itself.

In the study "Questões ético-jurídicas relativas ao uso de apps geradoras de dados de mobilidade para vigilância epidemiológica da Covid-19. Uma perspetiva Europeia" (Ethical-legal issues related to the use of apps that generate mobility data for epidemiological surveillance of Covid-19. A European perspective), Alexandra Aragão contextualises the European Commission's Recommendation (EU) 2020/518 on the use of technologies and data to combat COVID-19 through mobile apps and the use of anonymous mobility data (published on 18 April 2020), and presents the desirable requirements of these apps within the European Union.

In the face of the pandemic crisis, the FDUC expert believes that mobile applications that generate anonymised and aggregated mobility data to support the competent authorities in their efforts to contain the spread of the virus "have many advantages: they help to understand the spread of the virus, to assess the effectiveness of social distancing measures, to model the spatial dynamics of epidemics (movement restrictions, cessation of non-essential activities, total lockdown, etc.) and also to shape the economic impact of the crisis".

For citizens, the benefits of using multifunctional applications "are equally significant. For example, the self-diagnosis and symptoms control features can be particularly important for the emotional reassurance of users who are infected or who fear they may be infected. The alerting and tracking functions through proximity data (Bluetooth) can play a fundamental role in identifying social contacts".

Therefore, she adds, "the 'if' of the acceptance of new communication technologies for the most important social purposes, such as health protection, does not seem to be a problem. What is at stake are the security conditions for the production, access and use of information produced, processed, stored and transmitted".

Thus, with regard to the risks arising from the production of personal and location data by mobile applications linked to epidemiological surveillance networks, the FDUC professor also stresses that "the most serious risk is cybercrime in the broadest sense".

However, the risks of using mobile applications linked to epidemiological surveillance networks "are a reality similar to other applications, platforms or digital services that contain or can access personal data, such as Tinder, Find my friends or Snapchat, all of which have millions of users".

The researcher notes that several fundamental rights are at stake, such as the freedom of assembly (if the app is used to detect gatherings of people in advance); freedom of movement (signalling routes or destinations that are not recommended); intimacy of private life (if the app is used to detect undesirable behaviour, namely social proximity); human dignity (if confinement jeopardises access to food or other fundamental rights).

For all these reasons, it is easy to understand "the European Union's concern for the security of systems and the trust of users", says Alexandra Aragão, stressing that "the principles presented by the European Commission last April on mobile alert and security applications to combat COVID-19 aim to ensure that geolocation and digital communication technologies guarantee a trustworthy environment in which citizens have decision-making power over the data they provide online and offline".

Taking into account all the rules laid down in Recommendation (EU) 2020/518, the expert concludes that "all the conditions are in place to safely and confidently move forward with our shared digital future".

^{Translation by Diana Taborda}