Understanding Knotted Tensions in Purveying Pandemic Public Monitoring Technologies

Abstract

Pandemic public monitoring technologies (PPMT) could be an integral building block of pandemic management. Yet their development and operation warrants reconciling the privacy vs. pandemic containment trade-off, which poses serious challenges to PPMT purveyors. In this paper, we decompose this trade-off into a complex problem comprising 10 knotted logical tensions (i.e., contradictory poles). To do so, we identify these tensions via a dialectical interrogation of 30 articles on PPMT purveyance, and we explicate the possible rationale behind each pole of each tension by playing devil’s advocate. We discuss several avenues for future research, including conceiving PPMT as transactional digital commons.

Keywords: pandemic public monitoring technologies; COVID-19; tensions, healthcare technologies

JEL Classification: O32, O33, O38, I18