ICO offers guidance to organisations using data to combat coronavirus (COVID-19)

Article summary

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has published a series of questions for consideration by organisations using data to combat the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Several organisations are employing contact tracing and location tracking technologies, and the ICO is keen to ensure that privacy implications are appropriately considered. Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, held that exploration of such technologies is appropriate as they ‘could help us better understand how society is responding to isolation measures, and alert people who may have been in contact with the virus’. However, she stressed that these technologies must be used in a ‘fair and proportionate’ way.