World Health Organization Again Speaks Up for Data Protection

Dr. Michael Ryan, a key advisor for the World Health Organization, again this week emphasized the need to safeguard privacy and data protection in the responses to the coronavirus. “We take the issues of personal data protection and intrusion very, very seriously,’ said Dr. Ryan (video). He said that the WHO is working to ensure that "all of the initiatives we’re involved with, while aiming to develop good public health information, in no way interfere with the individual rights to privacy and protections under the law. It is important when we talk about surveillance and the surveillance society that in the case of public health the gathering of information about individuals, their movements must be done with the consent of the community and in many cases of the individual themselves."