Since the outbreak of COVID-19, governments have turned their attention to digital contact tracing. In many countries, public debate has focused on the risks this technology poses to privacy, with advocates and experts sounding alarm bells about surveillance and mission creep reminiscent of the post 9/11 era. Yet, when Apple and Google launched their contact tracing API in April 2020, some of the world’s leading privacy experts applauded this initiative for its privacy-preserving technical specifications. In an interesting twist, the tech giants came to be portrayed as greater champions of privacy than some democratic governments. This article proposes to view the Apple/Google API in terms of a broader phenomenon whereby tech corporations are encroaching into ever new spheres of social life. From this perspective, the (legitimate) advantage these actors have accrued in the sphere of the production of digital goods provides them with (illegitimate) access to the spheres of health and medicine, and more worrisome, to the sphere of politics. These sphere transgressions raise numerous risks that are not captured by the focus on privacy harms. Namely, a crowding out of essential spherical expertise, new dependencies on corporate actors for the delivery of essential, public goods, the shaping of (global) public policy by non-representative, private actors and ultimately, the accumulation of decision-making power across multiple spheres. While privacy is certainly an important value, its centrality in the debate on digital contact tracing may blind us to these broader societal harms and unwittingly pave the way for ever more sphere transgressions.

中文翻译：

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对隐私视而不见？数字接触者追踪、Apple/Google API 和大型科技公司作为全球卫生政策制定者的新角色。

自 COVID-19 爆发以来，各国政府已将注意力转向数字接触者追踪。在许多国家，公众辩论的焦点集中在这项技术对隐私构成的风险上，倡导者和专家对监视和任务蔓延敲响了警钟，让人想起 9/11 后时代。然而，当 Apple 和 Google 于 2020 年 4 月推出其联系人追踪 API 时，一些世界领先的隐私专家对其隐私保护技术规范表示赞赏。一个有趣的转折是，科技巨头被描绘成比一些民主政府更大的隐私拥护者。本文建议从更广泛的现象来看待 Apple/Google API，即科技公司正在侵入社会生活的新领域。从这个角度来看，这些参与者在数字产品生产领域获得的（合法）优势为他们提供了（非法）进入健康和医学领域的机会，更令人担忧的是，他们进入了政治领域。这些领域的违法行为引发了许多风险，而这些风险并未被关注隐私损害所捕获。即，挤出必要的球形专业知识，对企业参与者提供必要的公共产品的新依赖，由非代表性的私人参与者塑造（全球）公共政策，最终，决策权的积累。多个领域。虽然隐私无疑是一个重要的价值，但它在数字接触者追踪辩论中的核心地位可能会使我们对这些更广泛的社会危害视而不见，并在不知不觉中为更多领域的越界铺平道路。