Contact tracing for COVID-19 must protect the privacy of South Carolinians

As our economy has reopened and public health experts have reiterated how to slow the spread of COVID-19 — practice social distancing, wear a mask in public, avoid group gatherings and regularly wash your hands — we’ve heard about contact tracing.

Contract tracing is a decades-old strategy that when properly implemented enables the strategic focus of scarce resources on actual vectors of infection, rather than on whole populations. I emphasize the phrase “when properly implemented” because, as I’ve learned in my meetings with state Department of Health and Environmental Control officials, the possibility for unintended consequences abound.

Contact tracers speak with those who have tested positive for the virus and identify those to whom they may have transmitted the disease. In other words, contact tracing relies on sensitive personal data like location and health status — and therefore it raises serious privacy concerns.

That’s why I am hopeful that when the Legislature reconvenes on June 23, it will consider legislation that I have drafted to ensure that best-practice protocols are followed by DHEC and that the privacy of those who choose to participate is guaranteed. The failure to legally establish these protocols will result in many South Carolinians refusing to participate in contact tracing, and our state will not derive the health benefits that it offers.

Here are the primary components of my proposed legislation:

▪ Participation in the COVID-19 contract tracing program must be voluntary and its operations must be fully transparent. In addition, those who decide to participate must be able to see exactly what information is being collected on them and whom it is being shared with — and this data must not be shared by DHEC with any other person or organization.

▪ All contact-tracing technologies must be restricted to public health uses only and carried out in a decentralized way; any centralized database of person-to-person interactions or geo-location data is susceptible to abuse or data breach. Moreover, there must be fines, sanctions or other repercussions for any individual or organization that violates these privacy requirements.

▪ Contact tracers must be properly trained and certified; the gold standard is a class developed by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health that covers the biology of COVID-19, how to effectively counsel those who have been infected and how to display respect for privacy.

▪ There must be an ongoing public process to discuss, analyze and thoroughly vet the newly developed digital contact tracing technology designed to help slow the spread of COVID-19, including technology that Apple and Google are building into their smartphone software.

We cannot allow a bureaucratic drift toward the widespread use of technology in South Carolina — even on a voluntary basis — without first having an extensive, open discussion about its merits and demerits.

South Carolinians infected with COVID-19 can benefit from properly defined and constrained contact tracing; it is a proven way for them to learn how to protect themselves and their friends and family — and how to access available support systems. The program is about empowering people with information and dispelling fears.

But the burden is on state lawmakers to prove that we are employing contact tracers who will actually empower people — and not a horde of poorly trained and overreaching bureaucrats. If we can make that case by enacting common-sense legal safeguards, we can deal this virus a significant blow.

State Sen. Tom Davis represents District 46, which includes portions of Beaufort and Jasper counties.