coronavirus

EngageMedia, an organisation with significant experience in working remotely, has some tips and tools for those now working from home because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Technology has become a crucial part of the COVID-19 response, and this has raised some serious questions: Can privacy and public health security go hand in hand? Is it enough to use safeguards such as transparency and the use of intrusive technology only when absolutely necessary?

Many countries today are turning to digital technologies to provide information as well as for monitoring and controlling people infected with the virus, which alerts us to the potential impact of these technologies on people’s fundamental rights.

Over 100 organisations from around the world signed a joint statement stressing that digital surveillance to fight COVID-19 can only be justified if it respects human rights, and setting out conditions that must be met before the use of surveillance technology to fight the pandemic.

While governments and health workers worldwide are focused on combating the COVID-19 pandemic, they are also busy fighting another related pandemic that cuts across all sectors of society: a massive “infodemic” equally as wide-reaching and harmful.

The extent to which African countries are conducting technology-based disease surveillance is not fully known. While well intentioned, Covid-19 surveillance and data-based tracking interventions have been effected in haste, and with limited precedent and oversight mechanisms. 

The coronavirus pandemic isn’t a purely medical issue, it entangles all aspects of human lives, including our privacy, protection and dignity.

The Lebanese government announced on 12 March that Ogero, the national internet service provider (ISP), will double the speed and capacity for users until the end of April, but it did not clarify whether the decision includes other privately owned ISPs.