The Ethics of Livetracking in Connection with SARS-CoV-2 (ELISA)

Given the various measures that are being taken to contain SARS-CoV-2, the ELISA will investigate how livetracking applications are evaluated (descriptive level), and under what conditions they are morally justified (normative level). "Anti-corona apps", based on "contact and proximity tracing", focus on the location determination of users and monitoring of various vital indicators, which identify patterns that may be relevant in the case of coronavirus infection. While some consider individualized body-monitoring to be the ideal way to containing the pandemic, other groups recognize various risks. Against this background, the project will carry out an empirically informed and ethically sound balancing of interests. With a view to the goal of decelerating the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in order to relieve the healthcare system, it shall, as a first step, reconstruct a heterogeneous picture and, as part of a qualitative study, explore two fields of discourse: (a) "medical/health professionals" and (b) critical experts (IT-technicians, scienticts)". Second, a normative assessment will clarify under which circumstances the collection of clinically relevant data is morally justifiable under the premise of informed user consent. Following empirical ethics methogology, interviews are conducted employing semi-structured interviews and combining these with normative analysis. The goal is to achieve a status quo for the perception of site-based monitoring of vital signs and, second, to develop recommendations for ethically justified applications and consent procedures.