In this opinion piece, first published in The Wire, Sneha P discusses concerns of data privcay for COVID-19 patients.

As India progresses through its ‘unlock’ phases, we can expect to see a proliferation of digital technologies to contain the novel coronavirus’s spread. In these efforts, conserving patient privacy would be critical.

However, many government bodies in India have somewhat deprioritised this issue; some state governments  even mandate selfies and facial recognition. Other countries have performed these same functions in a way that preserves the users’ privacy, using de-identified, aggregated data and without exporting data from the users’ phones.

This begs the question: does patient privacy have to be compromised for public health?

Read the full article here.