London School of Economics: Covid-19 Government Response
Valentine Botteri, Madeline Copp, Ana Muñoz Morales, and Irina Rekhviashvili are graduate students at the London School of Economics, enrolled in the MSc in International Development Management. Between July 2020 and March 2021, they contributed independent research to a broader civil society initiative examining government responses to the Covid-19 pandemic across Africa, Latin America, South East Asia, and the Middle East.
Contact tracing apps emerged as a central plank of pandemic response strategies worldwide. Beyond the question of efficacy, the rapid rollout of these apps in many countries raised serious concerns about privacy and the risk of disproportionate surveillance – particularly in countries where data protection frameworks were underdeveloped or absent.
The three students supported AWO on an independent regional analysis of contact tracing apps and the data protection legal frameworks governing them across six countries.
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Six countries
The analysis covered Brazil, Colombia, India, Iran, Lebanon and South Africa – assessing each country's app in the context of its national privacy ecosystem.
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Regional reach
While grounded in specific national contexts, the findings were designed to offer insights across their respective regions, contributing to a wider evidence base for civil society advocates.
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Policy recommendations
The report identified recommendations across four areas: accountability, transparency, proportionality, and human rights – providing a framework applicable beyond the countries assessed.
The report formed part of the students' programme requirements and was produced as a contribution to an ongoing civil society initiative. Its central argument – that the technological response to Covid-19 must be embedded in adequate legal frameworks and accompanied by meaningful privacy and human rights safeguards – spoke to a gap that was evident across all four regions studied.
