We had the great privilege to coordinate an international multi-disciplinary research, conducted by the Human Technology Foundation, with the contribution of 45 experts - lawyers, ethicists, academics, tech people - from 13 countries on technology governance during crises.
Decision-makers, public and private, institutional and business alike, now find themselves facing a flood of opinions that raise issues of ethics around the IT-based health crisis solutions they are weighing. However, against the complexity of a pandemic, accepting every argument that claims ethical legitimacy would result in paralysis. So it is essential to clarify which legal and ethical principles to favour.
This report is addressed to such decision-makers. It elaborates a methodology aiming to provide them with the means for analyzing and deciding on the use of technologies to exit the crisis and accelerate a healthy return to "normal".
This report is made up of three main parts:
1) The first part focuses on the anthropological, social and ethical aspects related to the IT-based issues and the means for exiting the health crisis.
2) The second part provides an overview of the main technologies available with regard to health, technical and societal issues. Particular attention is paid to the most impactful issues, such a the nature of the data collected, how they are processed and stored (centralized/decentralized/ hybrid), the security aspects related to the technology used, etc. The aim is to make the ITbased aspect accessible to decision-makers.
3) The third part sets out in detail the methodology and accompanying tools. The method has been fully applied to a selection of responses illustrating the diversity of anti-COVID-19 ITbased solutions developed around the world.
Eleven solutions were analyzed in depth by an international team of technology, health, ethics and legal experts from ITechLaw. The results and lessons learned from this work are highlighted in the different sections of the and inform our recommendations.
Reading through the appendix could also be very valuable, since we provide open use documents on various key issues, such as a extended PostCoviData Impact Assessment; a comparative table of 11 initiatives (DP3T, Apple-Google API, NHSx, Coalition, Aarogya Setu, Estimote, TerraHub Credential Link, TraceTogether, Corona-Dataspende, ROBERT, MILA CoviApp); and key findings on those various initiatives.
Full version of the report
Short overview of the report