Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Apr 5, 2020
Date Accepted: Apr 19, 2020
Date Submitted to PubMed: Apr 20, 2020
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
COVID-19 Surveillance and Contact tracing: potentials of mobile positioning data and implications for patient data privacy
ABSTRACT
Background:
The coronavirus disease pandemic is the most significant global economic and health challenge of the century. Its effect and impact are still evolving, with deaths estimated to reach 40 million if not checked. One effective and complementary strategy to slow the spread and reduce the impact is to trace primary and secondary contacts using digital technology.
Objective:
The objective of this paper is to explore data privacy exceptions for technology-enabled surveillance and contact tracing of COVID-19 pandemic cases in Nigeria.
Methods:
We conducted an exploratory review of current measures for COVID-19 contact tracing globally. We then analyzed how countries are using mobile positioning data technology in handling the COVID 19 pandemic spread. We made recommendations for how Nigeria can adopt this approach in line with her recent Nigeria's Data Protection Regulation (NDPR).
Results:
Despite the potential, technology-enabled contact tracing always comes in conflict with patient data privacy regulations. We found that Nigeria's response currently complies with the NDPR and that it is possible to leverage telecommunications call detail registry (CDR) to complement other contact tracing measures within the NDPR regulation.
Conclusions:
Our study shows that CDR is an important tool for epidemic control but can pose significant privacy breach if measures are not implemented to ensure not only compliance but limit data misuse.
Citation
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Copyright
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