The ethical dilemma of mobile phone data monitoring during COVID-19: The case for South Korea and the United States

Governments across the world have integrated a variety of advanced technologies to respond to the COVID-19 crisis. In particular, the use of surveillance programs that leverage data and tools from mobile phones have become important components of public health strategies to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2 across the globe. Currently, big technology companies around the world are helping governments evaluate the effectiveness of their social distancing protocols by examining and analyzing movements of millions of mobile phone users in order to determine how the virus is spreading across the various geographic locations, and the effectiveness of the various social distancing methods that have been implemented. The collection and use of individual mobile phone data as a public health surveillance tool presents tensions between several ethical priorities. Such a dilemma resides in the tensions between public health ethics goals and clinical ethics goals. While public health ethics pursues goals that seek to ensure the good of the community, such goals are often achieved at the expense of clinical ethics goals which emphasize individual autonomy and civil liberty. In using persons’ mobile phone data as a tool to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, we must address the tensions associated with weighing the needs of “the many” with ensuring the rights of the individual.