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Techcrunch: Digital mapping of coronavirus contacts will have key role in lifting Europe’s lockdown, says Commission

Techcrunch: Digital mapping of coronavirus contacts will have key role in lifting Europe’s lockdown, says Commission

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The European Commission  has set out a plan for coordinating the lifting of regional coronavirus restrictions that includes a role for digital tools in what the EU executive couches as “a robust system of reporting and contact tracing.” However it has reiterated that such tools must “fully respect data privacy.”
Last week, the Commission made a similar call for a common approach to data and apps for fighting the coronavirus, emphasizing the need for technical measures to be taken to ensure that citizens’ rights and freedoms aren’t torched in the scramble for a tech fix.
Today’s package of measures and principles is the next step in its push to coordinate a pan-EU response.
Harmonized data gathering and sharing by public health authorities — “on the spread of the virus, the characteristics of infected and recovered persons and their potential direct contacts” — is another key plank of the plan for lifting coronavirus restrictions on citizens within the 27 Member State bloc.
While ‘anonymized and aggregated’ data from commercial sources — such as telcos and social media platforms — is seen as a potential aid to pandemic modelling and forecasting efforts, per the plan.
“Social media and mobile network operators can offer a wealth of data on mobility, social interactions, as well as voluntary reports of mild disease cases (e.g. via participatory surveillance) and/or indirect early signals of disease spread (e.g. searches/posts on unusual symptoms),” it writes. “Such data, if pooled and used in anonymised, aggregated format in compliance with EU data protection and privacy rules, could contribute to improve the quality of modelling and forecasting for the pandemic at EU level.”


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