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European Data Protection Board: Guidelines 04/2020 on the use of location data and contact tracing tools in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak

Topic
Data protection Surveillance COVID-19
Country/Region
Europe EU

27 April 2020

"The EDPB generally considers that data and technology used to help fight COVID-19 should be used to empower, rather than to control, stigmatise, or repress individuals. Furthermore, while data and technology can be important tools, they have intrinsic limitations and can merely leverage the effectiveness of other public health measures. The general principles of effectiveness, necessity, and proportionality must guide any measure adopted by Member States or EU institutions that involve processing of personal data to fight COVID-19."

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"These guidelines clarify the conditions and principles for the proportionate use of location data and contact tracing tools, for two specific purposes:

- using location data to support the response to the pandemic by modelling the spread of the virus so as to assess the overall effectiveness of confinement measures;
- contact tracing, which aims to notify individuals of the fact that they have been in close proximity of someone who is eventually confirmed to be a carrier of the virus, in order to break the contamination chains as early as possible."

Guidelines 04/2020 on the use of location data and contact tracing tools in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak (pdf)

See also: Contact Tracing in the Real World (Light Blue Touchpaper, link)

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