Evaluating Privacy During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency: The Case of Facial Recognition Technologies

Luis Felipe M. Ramos. 2020. Evaluating privacy during the COVID-19 public health emergency: the case of facial recognition technologies. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV 2020). Association for Computing Machinery, New York

4 Pages Posted: 13 Nov 2020

See all articles by Luis Felipe Ramos

Luis Felipe Ramos

University of Minho, School of Law

Date Written: September 23, 2020

Abstract

The present article aims to discuss how governments have turned to biometric technologies to fight the spread of COVID-19, mainly through the adoption of facial recognition technologies, and the risks to people’s privacy of inadequate measures to protect their personal data. We have identified seven systems from different countries (i.e., China, France, Israel, Poland, Singapore, South Korea, and Russia) that present some form of facial recognition during their operation and pointed out their functionalities and released information on safeguards for data protection. The data collected so far has shown that, in most countries, the necessary safeguards to protect people’s privacy and their personal data in the short-term and long-term, are not receiving sufficient considerations.

Keywords: Biometric Technologies, Facial Recognition, Personal Data, Privacy

JEL Classification: I18, K32, O32, O38

Suggested Citation

Ramos, Luis Felipe M., Evaluating Privacy During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency: The Case of Facial Recognition Technologies (September 23, 2020). Luis Felipe M. Ramos. 2020. Evaluating privacy during the COVID-19 public health emergency: the case of facial recognition technologies. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV 2020). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3729470

Luis Felipe M. Ramos (Contact Author)

University of Minho, School of Law ( email )

Braga
Portugal

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