Humanity has fought pandemics in the past centuries. Still, for the first very time, countries, including Latin America, possess the most powerful weapon to beat COVID-19: digital technologies that enable the collection of personal data and deliver a real-time update on the COVID-19.

To track the spread of the disease and monitor the movement of people in communities, countries have developed mobile applications that require personal information of its citizens. Digital technology might help address the coronavirus outbreak in Latin America. Still, in a region where countries do not have the same degree of privacy protection and enforcement, the collection of personal data for these apps may also threaten the privacy of citizens, according to a recent article.


Utilizing Personal Data

Data utilization to curb the pandemic comes in three main ways. First is contact tracing, which employs location data to track the movement people in the community as well as the people they have interacted with, such as that of South Korea and Israel. Second is modeling, which uses geolocation and mobility data to help explain how the disease spreads. Lastly, the mobility permit applications, which determines whether a person should observe self-isolation based on their risk of being a carrier.

In Colombia, the government issued a notice to cell phone service providers requiring them to hand in customers' personal information to the National Department of Planning. To come up with better plans to distribute health services in the city, Medellín launched a geo-referencing strategy to gather information on citizens and potential carriers of the virus.

In Brazil, the city of Recife in the northeast has been monitoring 700,000 mobile users to make sure that they comply with social isolation measures. The Brazilian telecom association presented "a unique data solution to monitor population mobility, displacement, and agglomeration points and identify situations of the concentration of people at risk of contamination by the new coronavirus." Meanwhile, the mayor of São Paulo is working closely with telecom companies to use targeted SMS messages for neighborhoods posing a significant risk for widespread contamination, as well as effectively profile and rank low-income communities.


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Disadvantages

Even though data-driven responses can be useful in helping address the COVID-19 crisis in the region, it can easily be used to target minorities or political opponents, especially in countries with authoritarian-leaning governments.

Existing data-protection laws in several Latin American countries such as Brazil's 2018 General Data Protection Law, Mexico's 2010 Data Protection law, and Colombia's 2012 Habeas Data law all rely on user consent to proceed on personal data collection and use. But permission, once given by the citizens, introduces another question on how they can control the ways their personal information is being used.

Although Brazil's congress passed a law similar to the European Union's privacy law, which contains additional protections and rights for individuals, the date when provisions would start to apply has been postponed multiple times - most recently because of the pandemic, to protect small business from facing new costs or rules - and no data authority, like a regulatory agency or an official in charge, is still in place.


Risk-Mitigation

According to a recent editorial, what policymakers can do for now is to create legal and policy limits regarding how the information is used and demand that risk-mitigating tools to be included in data-driven strategies from the very beginning such as a data minimization policy that indicates governments should only collect the vital information needed.

The article also suggests governments must limit the storage period of this information and use it for purposes defined to the pandemic. Lastly, programs must be transparent with public and open access to the rules, to allow monitoring and evaluation by the courts and civil society.

As of April 23, there are around 120,000 cases of COVID-19 across Latin America, with Brazil having the highest cases recorded at more than 46,000.