Today’s COVID-19 Data Will be Tomorrow’s Tools of Oppression; The Daily Beast, April 2, 2020

Mona Sloane and Albert Fox Cahn, The Daily Beast; Today's COVID-19 Data Will be Tomorrow's Tools of Oppression

"For proof of the danger, one need only look at the aftermath of September 11th. When Congress enacted the USA PATRIOT Act, just a few weeks after the deadly attacks, the fear of terrorism blinded lawmakers to the threat of broad-based, suspicionless surveillance. Decades later, those same provisions, many of which were supposed to sunset in 2005, were still being renewed as recently as this week. If we pass hastily drafted measures to address the privacy impact of COVID-19 surveillance, there is no reason to think their impact would fade any sooner.

We need laws that protect citizens from the new privacy risks posed by COVID-19-induced data exploitation. This is even more crucial when we're including profit-motivated entities. Days ago, President Trump announced a larger private sector partnership as part of the White House’s COVID-19 response that included large-scale collaborations with Google, Walmart, CVS, Walgreens and others. New legal frameworks need to impose clear limits on how health data from the COVID-19 response can be exploited for other business lines."