Since the outbreak of COVID-19, governments around the world have implemented a range of digital tracking, physical surveillance and censorship measures as a way to monitor, contain or mitigate the spread of the pandemic in their jurisdictions.  

Countries including Austria, Singapore, Belgium, Italy and Germany are all reportedly gathering anonymised or aggregated location data from telecom companies to help track the spread of COVID-19.

In response to the management and containment of COVID-19 in South Africa, the Information Regulator, established in terms of the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013, has issued a Guidance Note on the processing of personal information of data subjects (a “data subject” is the person whose personal information is being accessed).

The purpose of the Guidance Note is to guide public and private bodies and their operators on the reasonable limitation of the constitutional right to privacy when processing personal information for purposes of managing the spread of COVID-19.

The Guidance Note was issued following the publication of revised regulations by the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs on 2 April 2020, which make provision for a COVID-19 Tracing Database. In terms of the revised regulations, the Director-General of the Department of Health is authorised to direct electronic communications service providers to provide him or her with information regarding the location or movements of any person known or reasonably suspected to have contracted COVID-19; and the location or movements of any person known or reasonably suspected to have come into contact with such a person. 

The following significant points are highlighted in the Guidance Note: 

Public health interests can provide legitimate reasons to increase monitoring of individuals, but monitoring must be approached with caution in order to strike a balance between public health concerns, on the one hand, and the right to privacy on the other. If left unchecked and unchallenged, these measures have the potential to fundamentally alter the future of privacy in the context of human rights. 

Useful link: https://www.justice.gov.za/inforeg/docs/InfoRegSA-GuidanceNote-PPI-Covid19-20200403.pdf