AI Surveillance during Pandemics: Ethical Implementation Imperatives

Abstract

Artificial intelligence surveillance can be used to diagnose individual cases, track the spread of Covid‐19, and help provide care. The use of AI for surveillance purposes (such as detecting new Covid‐19 cases and gathering data from healthy and ill individuals) in a pandemic raises multiple concerns ranging from privacy to discrimination to access to care. Luckily, there exist several frameworks that can help guide stakeholders, especially physicians but also AI developers and public health officials, as they navigate these treacherous shoals. While these frameworks were not explicitly designed for AI surveillance during a pandemic, they can be adapted to help address concerns regarding privacy, human rights, and due process and equality. In a time where the rapid implementation of all tools available is critical to ending a pandemic, physicians, public health officials, and technology companies should understand the criteria for the ethical implementation of AI surveillance .

A Literature Review on the GDPR, COVID-19 and the Ethical Considerations of Data Protection During a Time of Crisis

“…In such an event, a solid legal framework needs to be implemented which defines in detail the scope, the limited duration of the use of mobile phone information, disabling of tracking systems and deletion of the gathered data once the crisis is over. Further, the mere existence of data protection impact assessments, mandatory under GDPR (Articles 35, 36 and Recitals 89 - 96), as well as data protection authorities and data protection supervisory bodies should provide solace in that the protection of citizens’ privacy interests is paramount and protected [ 10 ]. Given the sensitivity of the subject and the complex nature of ethics in the use of personal sensitive data, a comprehensive review of the ethical standards is needed.…”

“…Subsequently, the authors agreed to limit the review of articles published between October 2019 and up to December 2020, given that the topic of the COVID-19 outbreak was discussed more widely in Europe during this period. As indicated in the PRISMA chart [5] below, the selected search query terms were run through the PubMed, Mendeley and GoogleScholar GDPR's operation for contact tracing apps, sharing tools and an analysis of how it applies [4,[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] The authors overall discuss how the GDPR, being the key legal framework in data use and sharing, has been put to the test and the concerns arising which have made organisations to have a risk-averse approach in data sharing [4,6,7,11,12]. They analyse and assess how the legal grounds and guidance provided [6,7,12,13] and evaluate whether public interest basis may be more promising for research than a consent basis approach, given the high standards set out in the GDPR [12,13].…”

“…The literature also comments on the need for a proportional approach in data gathering which corresponds to the degree of emergency [9,12,13], how what seems to have risen is an inconsistent legal framework that impedes joint approaches [6,12,13] and how although these frameworks were not designed for AI surveillance, they have adapted to address concerns on privacy and human rights [10,13]. How and whether the GDPR and other data protection legislation is fit for purpose during a time of crisis such as COVID-19 [4,7,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] The authors analyse how and whether the GDPR and other data protection legislation and guidance is able to correspond during the current crisis by highlighting who is granted access to data [12,13,15,16] whether the removal of certain identifiers is sufficient to address privacy issues [23,25], the provisions which correspond to the research exemption [4], consent [14], public interest [12,17], and human rights [10,14,16]. It's stated and acknowledged that the GDPR makes explicit mentions of certain types of special categories of personal data processing on grounds of public interest, as well as serving the interests of data subject, for the purposes of humanitarian actions and disease prevention, which are comparable to the current situation, reflected in both Recital 46 and Recital 52 [7,13].…”

Using AI ethically to tackle covid-19

“…A risk exists, however, that the vague promise that a new technology will "save lives" can be used as a blanket justification for interventions we might not otherwise consider appropriate, such as widespread deployment of facial recognition software. 13 Those developing or deploying…”

“…A risk exists, however, that the vague promise that a new technology will “save lives” can be used as a blanket justification for interventions we might not otherwise consider appropriate, such as widespread deployment of facial recognition software. 13 Those developing or deploying such a system must be clear about whom their intervention will benefit and how. Only by making this explicit can one ensure that the intervention is proportionate to its benefit.…”