COVID-19 has posed unprecedented challenges to governments and civil society worldwide. Before effective treatments and vaccines become available, nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), including digital contact tracing technologies, are critical for delaying or controlling the spread of COVID-19. This paper investigates the practices, discussions, and legal and ethical issues of the contact tracing measures imposed in Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more
By analyzing official documents from the Ministry of Health and Welfare website, media reports, legal regulations, international organizations’ ethical guidelines, and research on contact tracing measures, this paper categorically presents the applications, effectiveness, and legal and ethical concerns of these measures in Taiwan. Results: Although the rates of confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19 are low in Taiwan, the Electronic Fence of Surveillance, a digital contact tracing measure implemented by the National Health Command Center, was found to lack legal certainty. Some proactive deployments by public and private organizations that have used location-based services, the National Health Insurance system, and the center’s data on of the digital footprints of confirmed cases do not meet ethical and scientific validity standards. Oversight mechanisms have not been established, and public reflection has not been addressed. Conclusions: This paper argues that the choice of upholding individual privacy rights versus performing digital contact tracing is not binary. To make digital technologies part of measures against COVID-19, and future public health crises, it is crucial to include diverse experts not only of information technology and biomedicine, but also of epidemiology, public health, law, ethics, and social sciences, as well as civil organizations in the design, application, oversight, and evaluation of new public health technologies.