The Importance of Privacy and Security amid the Coronavirus Crisis by Ivana Bartoletti, Technical Director of Privacy at Deloitte

By Ivana Bartoletti, Technical Director - Privacy, Deloitte and Co-Founder of Women Leading in AI Network

Future generations will be looking back at our response to coronavirus, and I would like them to do so with the same pride I look back at the response our grandparents and their parents gave to the ravages of the war. If it is true that Coronavirus will be a watershed moment in the way we do surveillance, the we must uphold the values of law and democracy. And we need to rethink privacy as a common good so that we can appreciate the collective value of our personal information.

This recent report by BBC News provides food for thought. It’s a very good letter published by responsible technologists (amazing people on that list!) warning that untested times do not mean we need to deploy untested tech as if corners are cut, the public's trust in the NHS will be undermined. Letter quotes the TraceTogether app built by Singapore as example of good practice - and this is spot on as privacy in/by design matters, and now more than ever as trust (in each others, in institutions etc) is key to getting out of this situation. BBC Rory Cellar-Jones says getting us to think privacy at this present time is a hard sell, and he is right esp as privacy has been unhelpfully framed as being vs something else (privacy vs innovation, safety, security etc, just think of the facial recognition debate) - so we have a lot of catching up to do. However, I do not feel this is (just) about privacy. Rather, I think this is about the rule of law, transparency and accountability. The letter correctly calls NHSX to provide for all of them.

As we navigate through this few months, let's think about: 1) how we stay firm to uphold the value of the rule of law and democracy, and 2) how we use this experience to build a sense of public value of personal information, with all that entails from both a technical and ethical standpoint.

Link to Ivana’s full post here

Ivana Bartoletti will be participating in our next webinar at 2pm on Friday 27 March. To dial-in the webinar click the Zoom link here.