Governing Privacy as Contexts Overlap during Crisis

• Published in: The Usage and Impact of ICTs During the Covid-19 Pandemic pp. 46 - 64
• Main Authors: Sanfilippo, Madelyn Rose, Liu, Chang
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United Kingdom Routledge 2023; Taylor & Francis Group
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: CoP Literature; Computer Vision Technologies; HIPAA Privacy; Health Information Behavior; Malicious Compliance; Relevant Governance; Low Health Literacy Group; Social Informatics; Vaccine Hesitancy; LIWC Lexicon; Privacy Governance; HIPAA Privacy Standard; Exposure Notification; Governance Assemblages; ICT Consequence; Sociotechnical Systems; LIWC; ICT Governance; Children's Online Privacy Protection; Social Informatics Research; Major Depression Group; Virtual CoP; Emergency Circumstances; HIPAA Privacy Rule; GDPR
• ISBN: 9781032139746; 9781032139753; 1032139757; 1032139749
• DOI: 10.4324/9781003231769-4

Technical solutions to social problems require contextually appropriate and responsive governance. As ICTs were adopted and adapted to meet social needs, supporting social distancing, and automating services and interactions throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, associated governance often lagged, especially pertaining to privacy. Further, ICT use under these emergency circumstances raised unique challenges associated with crisis contexts, and highlighted the gaps, failures, and limitations of existing contextual privacy regulations. This chapter approaches these challenges, exploring the sociotechnical nature of governance assemblages regarding privacy, as experienced in education, through healthcare, and by labor. This chapter explores privacy governance and enforcement in the domains of health, education, and labor. Technical solutions to social problems require contextually appropriate and responsive governance. As ICTs were adopted and adapted to meet social needs, supporting social distancing, and automating services and interactions throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, associated governance often lagged, especially pertaining to privacy. Changes within the sociotechnical systems employed for healthcare, and the governance of those systems, were simultaneous, rather than indicative of clear cause and effect. While there are very real tradeoffs documented between prioritizing vulnerable populations and satisfying with available technology, privacy sacrifices in turn also impact these populations. The enforcement action is limited to healthcare providers, excluding insurance companies. The COVID-19 outbreaks led to widespread office closures and a broad shift to remote work, while many jobs have had to continue in person, including those based in hospitals, nursing homes, schools, grocery stores, logistics, factories, and warehouses.