The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the long-standing public health practice of contact tracing into the public spotlight. While contact tracing and case investigation have been carefully designed to protect privacy, the huge volume of tracing which is being carried out as part of the pandemic response in the United States is highlighting potential concerns around privacy, legality, and equity. Contact tracing during the pandemic has gained particular attention for the new use of digital technologies—both on the consumer side in the form of Exposure Notification applications, and for public health agencies as digital case management software systems enable massive scaling of operations. While the consumer application side of digital innovation has dominated the news and academic discourse around privacy, people are likely to interact more intensively with public health agencies and their use of digital case management systems. Effective use of digital case management for contact tracing requires revisiting the existing legal frameworks, privacy protections, and security practices for management of sensitive health data. The scale of these tools and demands of an unprecedented pandemic response are introducing new risks through the collection of huge volumes of data, and expanding requirements for more adept data sharing among jurisdictions. Public health agencies must strengthen their best practices for data collection and protection even in the absence of comprehensive or clear guidance. This requires navigating a difficult balance between rigorous data protection and remaining highly adaptive and agile.

COVID-19 大流行使长期存在的接触者追踪公共卫生实践成为公众关注的焦点。虽然接触者追踪和案例调查经过精心设计以保护隐私，但作为美国应对大流行病的一部分而进行的大量追踪凸显了对隐私、合法性和公平性的潜在担忧。大流行期间的接触者追踪因数字技术的新用途而受到特别关注——无论是在消费者方面以暴露通知应用程序的形式出现，还是在公共卫生机构方面，因为数字病例管理软件系统能够实现大规模运营。虽然数字创新的消费者应用方面主导了围绕隐私的新闻和学术讨论，人们可能会更密切地与公共卫生机构及其对数字病例管理系统的使用进行互动。有效使用数字病例管理进行接触者追踪需要重新审视现有的法律框架、隐私保护和安全实践，以管理敏感的健康数据。这些工具的规模和前所未有的流行病应对需求正在通过收集大量数据引入新的风险，并扩大了对更熟练的数据在司法管辖区之间共享的要求。即使没有全面或明确的指导，公共卫生机构也必须加强数据收集和保护的最佳实践。这需要在严格的数据保护与保持高度适应性和敏捷性之间取得艰难的平衡。