Too Much Information
Assessing Privacy Risks of Contact Trace Data Disclosure on People With Covid-19 in South Korea
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22077097 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gyuwon Jung (0000-0001-5367-2386, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), Hyunsoo Lee (0000-0003-2379-060X, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), Auk Kim (0000-0002-5695-6760, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, corresponding author), Uichin Lee (0000-0002-1888-1569, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Pages | 305-305 |
| Publication date | 2020-06-18 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Frontiers in Public Health (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2296-2565 • E-ISSN: 2296-2565 |
| Publisher | Frontiers Media SA (PUBLISHER • CH) |
| DOI | 10.3389/fpubh.2020.00305 |
| PMID | 32626681 |
| OpenAlex | W3034691820 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 16 |
| References cited | 16 |
Introduction: With the COVID-19 outbreak, South Korea has been making contact trace data public to help people self-check if they have been in contact with a person infected with the coronavirus. Despite its benefits in suppressing the spread of the virus, publicizing contact trace data raises concerns about individuals’ privacy. In view of this tug-of-war between one’s privacy and public safety, this work aims to deepen the understanding of privacy risks of contact trace data disclosure practices in South Korea. Method: In this study, publicly available contact trace data of 970 confirmed patients were collected from seven metropolitan cities in South Korea (20th Jan-20th Apr 2020). Then, an ordinal scale of relative privacy risk levels was introduced for evaluation, and the assessment was performed on the personal information included in the contact trace data such as demographics, significant places, sensitive information, social relationships, and routine behaviors. In addition, variance of privacy risk levels was examined across regions and over time to check for differences in policy implementation. Results: It was found that most of the contact trace data showed the gender and age of the patients. In addition, it disclosed significant places (home/work) ranging across different levels of privacy risks in over 70% of the cases. Inference on sensitive information (hobby, religion) was made possible, and 48.7% of the cases exposed the patient’s social relationships. In terms of regional differences, a considerable discrepancy was found in the privacy risk for each category. Despite the recent release of government guidelines on data disclosure, its effects were still limited to a few factors (e.g., workplaces, routine behaviors). Discussion: Privacy risk assessment showed evidence of superfluous information disclosure in the current practice. This study discusses the role of "identifiability" in contact tracing to provide new directions for minimizing disclosure of privacy infringing information. Analysis of real-world data can offer potential stakeholders, such as researchers, service developers, and government officials with practical protocols/guidelines in publicizing information of patients and design implications for future systems (e.g., automatic privacy sensitivity checking) to strike a balance between one’s privacy and the public benefits with data disclosure
Environmental health · Hobby · Internet privacy · Metropolitan area · Political science · Public health · Computer Science · COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing · Medicine · Privacy-Preserving Technologies in Data · Privacy, Security, and Data Protection
Care-Less Data Pop Cultures
Mobile Media During the Pandemic
Privacy and surveillance attitudes during health crises
Identification and comparison of pandemic-to-symptom networks of South Korea and the United States
Cyber violence caused by the disclosure of route information during the Covid-19 pandemic
Uncertain future of privacy protection under the Korean public health emergency preparedness governance amid the Covid-19 pandemic
Thinking about Social Consequences of Covid-19 Influenced Preventive Intention
Pandemic Priorities
Covid-19 Apps as a Digital Intervention Policy
Understanding Rewarding and Challenging Nursing Experiences During the Pandemic in Five Countries
Covid-19 Exceptionalism
A systematic review of public policy implementation during the Covid‐19 pandemic
Government dissemination of epidemic information as a policy instrument during Covid-19 pandemic
Delineating privacy aspects of Covid tracing applications embedded with proximity measurement technologies & digital technologies
Promoting Public Compliance through Information Disclosure
The Challenges Faced by Korean Social Workers at the Community Welfare Centres for People with Disabilities during Covid-19 Pandemic
| Unique citing works | 16 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,2 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2025 (5) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 13 |