Clendaniel: COVID-19 Exit Strategy Presents Ethical, Logistical Challenges
“Yes, it raises right-to-privacy questions, but framing this as a privacy vs. common good issue is an oversimplication,” said Irina Raicu, director of the internet ethics program at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. “This is an issue of fairness. Contact tracing doesn’t happen in the same way for all people, and the impact isn’t the same for all people.”
“We have already seen a bias against minority groups in the collection of data,” said Ann Mongoven, the Markkula Center’s associate director of health care ethics. “How many thousands of deaths did it take before people began to realize that African-Americans and Latinos were dying at a higher rate than others? Are people who don’t have access to an app going to go unidentified? And what about children or people who don’t participate? A partially accurate view might actually do more harm than good.”
Ann Mongoven, associate director of Healthcare Ethics, and Irina Raicu, director of Internet Ethics, quoted in The Mercury News.