The scale and spread of the global pandemic have surprised everyone. With the governments of countries across all continents becoming involved except Antarctica. Not since WWII has there been an event that has brought the instruments of state institutions and the behaviour of the public into such close proximity with each other.
While the COVID-19 pandemic is clearly a global issue that crosses national boundaries and jurisdictions, particular states have adopted different approaches and measures within their own populations in order to contain the spread of the virus. Approaches and measures that have also been taken within the context of specific cultural norms. A case in point has been the tendency to take a scientific evidence-based approach within the UK in order to persuade the public of the rightness of the measures for governing the situation, versus a more hierarchical approach adopted by the governments of many other countries. Whichever approach is adopted, the ethical principles underpinning these measures—and thereby their acceptability to the public— remains an interesting area of debate.
In his book “Privacy and Freedom” (Westin, 1970), Alan Westin defined privacy as the “claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others” (p.7). Now known as the ‘informational definition of privacy’ it is a definition intended to be read against a background of limits on the state and limits on any unwarranted intrusion by the state into the private life of individuals. It is also a definition that has since been extended to situations when individuals may also choose to determine for themselves when to place limits on the access of others to the individual self.
The case this week of a Taiwanese national attending an American university in Europe who—on returning to Taiwan—has been placed in home quarantine for 14 days, renews interest in the social conditions that may tip the ethical scales in favour of one party or another. In this case between the informational privacy of individual citizens on the one hand and a justification for government surveillance for public health purposes on the other (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52017993). The specifics of the case are any returning citizen will be requested to supply contact details along with information on recent movements, will be placed in home quarantine for 14 days, and as additional enforcement actions, will also be subject to satellite tracking of their phone, and a fine of up to one million TWD (about £25,000) should they break the conditions of the quarantine.
While these measures benefit the health and welfare of the population and can be seen to be a fair distribution of burdens in order to prevent further harm, specific individuals may still feel the pinch of such precautionary measures and the lack of informed consent. Westin’s continuing argument is pertinent. On discussing the value of privacy, he makes the following assertion: “the individual’s desire for privacy is never absolute, since participation in society is an equally powerful desire. Thus each individual is continually engaged in a personal adjustment process in which he balances the desire for privacy with the desire for disclosure and communication of himself to others, in light of the environmental conditions and social norms set by the society in which he lives” (Westin, 1970, p. 7). Guided by the prevailing conditions and social norms attached to public health, it can be argued that government-citizen relations are undergoing a process of adjustment. Privacy is not an absolute but a relationship.
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