The Ethics of Livetracking-Applications in Connection with SARS-CoV-2 (ELISA)

Basic data for this project

Description

Given the various measures that are currently being taken internationally to contain SARS-CoV-2, the project will specifically investigate how livetracking applications are evaluated (descriptive level), and under what conditions they are morally justified (normative level). “Anti-corona apps”, based on “contact and proximity tracing”, focus on the location determination of the users and the monitoring of various vital indicators, which, based on algorithms, identify symptoms that may be relevant in the case of coronavirus infection. While some consider individualized body-monitoring to be the ideal way to containing the pandemic, other groups recognize various risks. Against this background, the project will carry out an empirically informed and ethically sound balancing of interests. With a view to the politically forced goal of decelerating the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in order to relieve the healthcare system, it shall, as a first step, reconstruct a heterogeneous atmospheric picture and, as part of a qualitative study, explore two fields of discourse: (a) the “discourse of medical/health professionals” (incl. medical associations, hospital personnel, professional associations) and (b) the “discourse of critical experts” (incl. scientists, IT specialists, activists). In the second step, a normative assessment will clarify under which circumstances and in which situations the collection of clinically relevant data can be ethically vindicated and is morally justifiable under the premise of informed user consent. In order to implement empirically informed ethics, expert interviews are conducted employing a semi-structured interview sheet and combining these with normative analysis. The research goal is to achieve the status quo for the evaluation of site-based monitoring of vital signs and thus to develop – in addition to scientific publications – recommendations for ethically justified applications and to make the results available to professionals, political decision-makers, and the public.