Data currently plays a central role in the management of COVID-19 in Kenya. In this in-depth write-up, our TMT team Catherine Kariuki Mulika, Janet Othero, Joyanne Wanjiru, Sherry Bor and Amrit Labhuram assess the implications of government processing personal information in contact tracing and tracking efforts. Further, what are the data protection and privacy considerations to be made by the employer as they re-open the workplace and process sensitive health data?
“The highly infectious nature of the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in various governments adopting innovative technological solutions focused on Big Data and Bluetooth tracing to effectively track and contain the spread of the disease.
China, from the onset of the pandemic, had adapted their highly integrated nationwide CC-TV surveillance system to ensure social distancing and lockdown measures are adhered to. Apple and Google have collaborated to design an interoperable application platform that will allow various tracking applications to operate on both iOS and Android devices. E.U member states such as Germany and Switzerland have adopted contact tracing applications developed around Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing which is an open-source protocol developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to facilitate digital contact tracing of infected participants.”