Let’s get over the fear of data

Sharing contact data during COVID-19 is a necessary departure from recent history.

Australia's deputy chief medical officer, Professor Paul Kelly, was recently asked whether tracing the contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases using a smartphone app was at the government’s disposal – to which he replied “these are difficult decisions to make in terms of people's privacy.”

The ABC's health commentator Norman Swan said Australia should do the same as nations such as Taiwan and Singapore, where tracing technology has been deployed to trace the contacts of confirmed cases. “We need to actually get over our fear of data,” he said.

Since then, the Federal Government has launched its COVID-19 opt-in app “COVIDSafe” to help trace infections, which has been met with demands for privacy guarantees, including from MPs within the Government itself, but is also past three million downloads across the country.

This is a new development. The world had begun to view ‘data’ with fear: how it’s shared, how people access it, how it’s used, and how it’s stored and protected were among the chief concerns.

Given the negative headlines around data in recent years, that fear isn’t without some merit.

Placing data in lockdown

Until recently, we were largely OK with providing data to companies or organisations in exchange for a free service such as a social media account or an email service. However, many were unaware how much of their data was being used, until a number of breaches lifted the veil.

In 2016 it was revealed that the email addresses and passwords of around 117 million LinkedIn users had been exposed. Soon after, in March 2017, the personally identifying data of nearly 150 million people was stolen from Equifax, one of the credit reporting agencies that assess the financial health of US citizens.

But the final straw for many was when Cambridge Analytica gained access to the private information of more than 50 million Facebook users, offering tools that could identify the personalities of American voters to influence their behaviour, to political parties and movements. The outrage was immediate and led to fines for Facebook and the quick (voluntary) disbandment of Cambridge Analytica.

The door had seemingly closed on data.

Flattening the curve with data

As a novel coronavirus emerged and slowly began to spread outwards across the globe, we began to rely on the vast reams of data being generated to make sense of what it was, where it came from, how it spread and where it was going.

Researchers were able to view available data to retrace the origins of patient zero and how the virus came to infect humans. Healthcare organisations in China began to understand the infection rates and length – and they quickly realised how deadly and easily transmittable the virus was.

Soon after, the coronavirus was labelled a pandemic and renamed COVID-19.

We know much of the data off by heart these days: the infection lasts about 14 days, hence the need to self-isolate for at least that long if infected or have been in contact with an infected person. It’s at least six times deadlier than the common flu. You need to stay 1.5 metres apart from the next person, not gather in groups of more than two, and wash your hands for 20 seconds.

Almost minute by minute we can find key data such as confirmed infections, fatalities and recoveries in every country. We’ve rejiggered our way of life and economy to ‘flatten the curve’ so that we lower the infection rate, save lives and ease the burden on our healthcare system.

We’ve come to rely on data as our best weapon against this pandemic until such time as a vaccine is created. Much of this is publicly available data and we’re now used to it being shared, collated, analysed and stored.

Actionable insights are quickly gleaned from the influx of data through the use of database management tools, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, which analyse data as quickly as possible, to help leading health organisations and governments update their forecasts and mitigation strategies.

It’s important that the checks and balances – such as the GDPR in Europe and the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme here – remain in place so organisations are compelled to protect data from the wrong hands, or from misuse.

Dr Swan however is correct to say that we need to get over our fear of data. When we need quick actions during a crisis, data has proven to be among the most effective tools we have to provide insight and develop strategies to mitigate the threats we face.

An ideal balance between privacy and access needs to be struck to ensure we can mitigate crises not just as they emerge, but to better prepare us ahead of them.

Andrew Aho is the Regional Director – Data Platforms for InterSystems, a creative data technology provider.