Effectiveness of Technology Assisted Contact Tracing (Tact) Software and the Perceived Privacy Implications in Covid – 19 Era

Abstract

The COVID 19 pandemic has put countries, economies, governments and organizations under unprecedented strain, calling for innovative approaches. Among the public health measures or comprehensive strategies used to mitigate and contain the wide spread of the deadly disease (COVID 19) is the Technology Assisted Contact Tracing (TACT) Software. These apps help in the rapid tracing and notification of potentially infected persons. The expected advantages of TACT over the manual method of contact tracing include speed, specificity and mass reach. However, the effectiveness of these apps depends strongly on their ability to ensure that individual information is not used for surveillance purposes and user privacy will be maintained. This research, therefore, is an opinion paper in which the researcher explores the ethical challenges presented by TACT and as well as solutions to the issues raised. It examines issues such as public trust, data privacy and technology design. The study recommends that software vendors should ensure proper implementation and deployment of TACT technologies while considering confidentiality and integrity of collected data