Trustless Approaches to Digital Infrastructure in the Crisis of COVID-19: Australia's Newest COVID App, Home-Grown Surveillance Technologies and What to Do About It

Abstract

This week, the Australian Government proposed a mobile phone-based tracking application to address the spread of coronavirus. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated an acceleration of government-led surveillance technology around with the world. At present, the significant uptick in digital tools as a policy response to address the public health crisis are not being matched by suitable policy clauses or technology design to serve the interests of Australian citizens. This article presents the global contact-tracing phone app responses to COVID-19, outlines the key privacy concerns and presents alternative policy pathways and technical approaches towards privacy preservation and trustless (trust minimising) digital infrastructure to improve Australia’s digital-political response to COVID-19.

Keywords: privacy, decentralisation, surveillance, contact tracing, COVID-19, trust

JEL Classification: 033, 035, 038