Digital COVID tracing will barter away our liberties: Laurence Tribe

The benefits of the data-driven coronavirus tracing programs are immediate and tangible. The costs are more abstract and uncertain. But by trading abstract harms for short-term gain, we risk permanently damaging the fabric of our society.

Reopening our economy and society will require revealing more about ourselves than ever before. Knowing who can safely reenter public spaces demands extensive contagion testing, contact tracing and sharing medical information long deemed private. Especially for the digital generation, that might seem a low price to pay for greater normalcy.

But history teaches us to beware such bargains. They can permanently transform us in ways we will come to regret, as we drift over a privacy horizon from which we might never return.

via www.usatoday.com

Larry Tribe.