White Lucie, van Basshuysen Philippe
Institut für Philosophie, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany
Institut für Philosophie, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany.
J Med Ethics. 2021 Jan 8;47(12):e83. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2020-107061.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, high hopes were put on digital contact tracing, using mobile phone apps to record and immediately notify contacts when a user reports as infected. Such apps can now be downloaded in many countries, but as second waves of COVID-19 are raging, these apps are playing a less important role than anticipated. We argue that this is because most countries have opted for app configurations that cannot provide a means of rapidly informing users of likely infections while avoiding too many false positive reports. Mathematical modelling suggests that differently configured apps have the potential to do this. These require, however, that some pseudonymised data be stored on a central server, which privacy advocates have cautioned against. We contend that their influential arguments are subject to two fallacies. First, they have tended to one-sidedly focus on the risks that centralised data storage entails for privacy, while paying insufficient attention to the fact that inefficient contact tracing involves ethical risks too. Second, while the envisioned system does entail risks of breaches, such risks are also present in decentralised systems, which have been falsely presented as 'privacy preserving by design'. When these points are understood, it becomes clear that we must rethink our approach to digital contact tracing in our fight against COVID-19.
在新冠疫情初期，人们对数字接触者追踪寄予厚望，即利用手机应用程序记录用户报告感染时的接触情况并立即通知相关接触者。现在许多国家都可以下载此类应用程序，但随着新冠疫情第二波高峰肆虐，这些应用程序所发挥的作用比预期的要小。我们认为，这是因为大多数国家选择的应用程序配置无法在避免过多误报的同时，为用户提供一种快速告知其可能感染情况的方式。数学模型表明，不同配置的应用程序有潜力做到这一点。然而，这需要在中央服务器上存储一些假名化数据，隐私倡导者对此表示谨慎。我们认为，他们有影响力的论点存在两个谬误。首先，他们往往片面地关注集中式数据存储给隐私带来的风险，而对低效的接触者追踪也涉及伦理风险这一事实关注不足。其次，虽然设想的系统确实存在数据泄露风险，但分散式系统也存在此类风险，而分散式系统却被错误地描述为“设计上保护隐私”。当理解了这些要点后，就会清楚地认识到，在抗击新冠疫情的斗争中，我们必须重新思考数字接触者追踪的方法。
