Hey folks. The webinar will be converted into a podcast (possibly a two-parter) and our team will be sure to share it in case, anyone is interested in checking it out at a later point.
I must say that I had a great time speaking with and learning from both Dr Sonali Vaid and Srininvas Kodali. Even though it was an almost 90 minute discussion, it certainly did not feel that way and that is also partly down to the Ms Padma Priya’s expert moderation which allowed for the three of us to have an organic conversation on what can usually be a dense topic.
Some of my big takeaways from our discussion is as follows:
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There’s a need to be able to articulate the differences between disease surveillance which takes place in the physical world, and highlighting the moments it may morph into individual surveillance when information and communication technologies are brought into the equation.
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Contact tracing and disease surveillance in the physical world of biomedicine is about treatment, and curing infected people. Its not about law enforcement or coercing/controlling people’s behaviour/movements
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When discussing such technologies we can forget about factors like trust, justice, equity, gender and how such interventions may have certain implications for people who do not have access to internet connected devices (like smartphones)
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We need to upend the impulse towards technological solutionism and learn from the regulatory systems of checks and balances in other domains like biomedicine, automobiles, psychology, etc.
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The Government’s impulse towards democratising access to data through the creation of API-based systems like health stacks necessarily demands a system of checks and balances and a big weakness is that although we have a strong right to privacy judgement i.e. KS Puttaswamy v UOI, almost three years later we do not have a strong data protection law which holds both private actors and the government itself accountable when using people’s personal and sensitive personal information.
I also raised many of our concerns, which we’ve discussed in considerable detail in our working paper which you may read here.
The points raised in this discussion by both Sonali and Srinivas will be help us as we develop an updated version of our working paper which we will share with all stakeholders including relevant government departments.
Would encourage you to check out the podcast when it is available for the public to access.