Individual Health Tracking Applications in the Age of COVID-19 and Emerging Third Party Oversight

Abstract

In the 2020 decade, the most valuable commodity is no longer only our physical body, but also our brains and mental states. How do we think, and what does our digital footprint say about our future actions? In "Privacy is Power," Carissa Véliz introduces readers to a similar vein of thought, describing that with knowledge, personalities, and feelings, each person possesses "a source of power" (Véliz, 2019). "Power over others' privacy," she writes, "is the quintessential kind of power in the digital age" (Véliz, 2019). This dilemma forms a moral tug-of-war in the time of a worldwide health crisis, forcing many people to decide whether to protect personal privacy or help prevent community transmission by opting-in to a shared database for COVID-19 contact tracing. Looking through the lens of the United States's approach, I will discuss how countries globally both in Europe and in Asia such as South Korea impacted the American public's views on widespread COVID-19 tracing systems set in place and how recent data controversies continue to stir the pot on digital platforms’ trustworthiness and accountability. Current situations lead us to determine how society faces future pandemics and formulate steps to reform any existing pitfalls and misunderstandings. This paper will investigate how congressional and third-party oversight are necessary in safeguarding individual information, along with expanding the system of Bluetooth-based digital contact tracing to preserve transparency and user anonymity.