5.8. THE USE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES: CASE TRACING AND TRACKING The use of data and technologies to gather information about people is a routine part of daily life in the digital age. These technologies are employed in emergencies for diverse reasons: to convey warnings and vital information, to mobilize response teams and to track threats. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments have turned to technology to manage the spread of the virus and to provide updates and information. Across the OSCE region, participating States have been using apps and digital surveillance primarily to collect health data (for example, case tracing and tracking through newly developed apps) and to monitor people’s movement, in order to enforce lockdowns, quarantines or curfews (for example, by using location data from mobile phones, facial recognition and requiring QR codes to register travel outside the home). The right to respect for private and family life refers to the right not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with one’s privacy and the right to the protection of the law if subjected to interference or attacks on privacy, whether committed by the state or an individual. The right to privacy is not an absolute right, because there are legitimate reasons when public authorities may need information about individuals’ private lives, but the right must also be safeguarded, requiring states to be clear about when interferences with privacy are permitted. The ECHR makes clear that public authorities shall not interfere in the right to respect for private and family life, except in limited circumstances, when: the interference is done lawfully, is necessary “in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.” Right to privacy In emergencies, individual rights to privacy must be “rigorously protected”, and states using surveillance technology to track the spread of the coronavirus (for example) must “abide by the strictest protections” that are consistent with international human rights standards. Right to data protection The right to personal data protection, included in several regional human rights instruments,240 provides that personal data should be collected and processed fairly and through procedures established by the law, for a specific purpose, and that data should be stored for 240 For example, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000/C 364/01), Article 8, specifies the right to protection of personal data. See: EU, “Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union”, 26 October 2012, <https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:12012P/TXT#:~:text=The%20European%20 Parliament%2C%20the%20Council,Rights%20of%20the%20European%20Union.&text=It%20places%20 the%20individual%20at,of%20freedom%2C%20security%20and%20justice>. 68