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From computational indicators to law into technologies: the Internet of Things, data analytics and encoding in COVID-19 contact-tracing apps

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2021

David Restrepo Amariles
David Restrepo Amariles*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Data Law and AI, HEC Paris, France, and Research Fellow at the Perelman Centre for Legal Philosophy (ULB), Belgium
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: restrepo-amariles@hec.fr
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Abstract

This paper investigates the data life-cycle of contact-tracing apps (CTAs) in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlights the socio-legal implications resulting from the design and technology choices that software developers inevitably make. These choices are often neglected by policy-makers due to the inherent technical complexity of algorithmic decision systems and to certain naive belief in technological solutionism. In particular, this paper shows, first, that technology-harvested data do not reflect an objective representation of reality, and therefore require a context within which to be understood and interpreted for policy and legal purposes; and, second, that the use of data analytics to extract insights from these data enables the production of computational indicators. By looking at how CTAs are used to implement pandemic-mitigation restrictions such as lockdowns, quarantines, social distancing and testing, the paper ultimately brings forth the ways in which technologies – and thus their bias and ways of framing social reality – become embedded in the law.

Keywords

contact-tracing appslaw and technologyInternet of Thingscomputational indicatorsCOVID-19
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 17 , Special Issue 2: Numbers in an emergency: The many roles of indicators in the COVID-19 crisis , June 2021 , pp. 261 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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