Tech companies, governments, and international agencies have all announced measures to help contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus. 

Some of these measures impose severe restrictions on people’s freedoms, including to their privacy and other human rights. Unprecedented levels of surveillance, data exploitation, and misinformation are being tested across the world. 

Many of those measures are based on extraordinary powers, only to be used temporarily in emergencies. Others use exemptions in data protection laws to share data. 

Some may be effective and based on advice from epidemiologists, others will not be. But all of them must be temporary, necessary, and proportionate. 

Privacy International has launched a global tracker to monitor these. It can be accessed here.

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