Privacy in a Pandemic – the Conundrum of COVID-19 Check-in Solutions

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when we were all grappling with the avalanche of concepts like ‘social distancing’ and ‘personal protective equipment’, the idea of contact tracing had many scratching their heads. In the age of automation, a manual process involving a team of people making calls and conducting interviews to find those exposed to the virus can seem almost counter-intuitive. Perhaps this is part of why, in 2020, we saw a dedicated push to find digital solutions to the challenges of COVID-19. This has included digital contact tracing solutions such as the Australian Government’s COVIDsafe app. However, the adoption of visitor registers that record which individuals have visited specific locations and their contact details, have been far more helpful to contact tracers.