During the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, measures that would normally be unthinkable in liberal democracies, such as lockdowns, curfews, bans on free assembly, and digital contact tracing, have been implemented in many countries. The aim of this project, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, is to investigate what kind of measures are justifiable in the exceptional circumstances of a pandemic. In this investigation, we focus in particular on digital contact tracing, weighing the efficacy of various configurations, and their possible implications for, among other things, privacy violations.
Team: Mathias Frisch (PI), Philippe van Basshuysen, Lucie White