Report: Privacy in the Era of COVID-19

This report summarises the concerns that were raised during our virtual discussion on privacy in the era of COVID-19 held on April 29, 2020. The discussion saw participation from multiple stakeholders including Rajya Sabha MP Shri Amar Patnaik.

The futility of coerced consent and how existing disease surveillance programmes do not address privacy concerns emerged as key issues. The discussants sought to ringfence encroachments on fundamental rights during a health emergency to ensure transparency, accountability, and proportionality of measures that are taken. Ringfencing measures included what kind of norms should exist for disease surveillance and contact tracing, and contouring the governance framework for privacy in a pandemic.

This session was hosted with support from Internet Society (APAC), Google, Facebook and the Centre for Communications Governance (NLU-Delhi)