Contact Tracing: Between Control and Care

Contact tracing has become one common practice to monitor and track the transmission of COVID-19 both regionally and globally. While the practice aims to take care of public health, its collection and use of data has still generated debates and concerns around the question of control, privacy and market, which, of course, also varies depending on different contact tracing approaches and conductors. With collective health on the one side and privacy protection on the other, how shall we balance control and care involved in contact tracing? How could we understand its implications and foresee its development? In this workshop we will explore not only the pros and cons of contact tracing but also the bias implied in the viral transmission, the rhetoric of the “super spreader,” and the ways through which technology might or might not constitute a more caring future.

SPEAKERS

Susan Craddock​: Professor in the Institute for Global Studies at the University of Minnesota;

Mauro Turrini​: sociologist of science and medicine at the Institute of Public Goods and Policies (IPP) of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC);

Vincenzo Pavone: Director of the Institute of Public Policies (IPP), ​of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC);

Morris Fabbri: Graduate, MA in Bioethics and Science Policy, Duke University.

MODERATOR

Yanping Ni