COVID-19 guidance to UNDP country offices on privacy, data protection and digital technologies

Covid-19 has generated a global rush to find tools and resources to guide and enable government responses. The most urgent need has been for data, including personal data, and readily available instruments to enable authorities to quickly detect cases and trace contacts in order to control the spread of the virus, as well as manage the information flow to ensure an orderly and strategic response. This has led to a patchwork of measures developed at speed (some by governments, others by private sector entities that offer them to governments), with many of them leaning on the power of digital technologies (particularly mobile devices) to enable expeditious, comprehensive, real-time data grab and analysis. Some of the approaches employed by governments (in cooperation with the private sector) that have received the most media coverage are digital tracking and surveillance tools that employ various forms of ‘contact tracing’ of either people that have tested positive for Covid-19, or their ‘at risk’ contacts, as well as quarantine/self-isolation enforcement mechanisms.