Health, privacy and liberty: a call for digital governance during (and after) the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted the development and use of technology by increasing the use of previously existing technological resources, such as maps identifying population movements; assigning new uses to previously existing technological mechanisms, such as the use of facial recognition for monitoring infected people; and encouraging the development of new technologies, such as apps that ascribe risk codes to citizens. Without these digital measures, the pandemic would probably continue to expand, or, alternatively, entire populations would have to be quarantined for months (or even years), with significant consequences arising from either scenario. Technologies provide tools to avoid those scenarios. However, digital measures come at a price to our rights, namely our rights to privacy and liberty. Precautions and limitations ought to be imposed on the use of these technologies, forming a code of digital governance for COVID-19.