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frontiers. The main challenges for regulators include data protection issues,106 the regulation of
novel technologies,107 fairness and equity questions108 stemming from uneven vaccine distribution
across the globe and even within countries that apply age and priority focuses or that de jure or de
facto exclude marginalized populations.109 There are also issues which arise for those who are
unable to take up vaccination opportunities because of underlying health conditions. Finally, there
is the overriding question of how far it is permitted, in the interests of combatting a public health
emergency, for regulators to intrude in the private life of citizens, residents, and visitors. Leaving
behind the question of pandemic (im)mobilities, it is to this issue that we now turn.
E. Intrusions of COVID-19 into the Sphere of Private Life
Rights to privacy and respect for private and family life are not, as such, rights of citizenship. Such
rights are very often also extended, although not always to the same extent, to non-citizens accessing or residing in a country. There are therefore blurred boundaries to be drawn between constitutional rights, fundamental rights, human rights, and rights of citizenship. Nonetheless, it remains
important to discuss the rights dimension of COVID-19’s impact as a dimension of membership,
as the contestation of rights is not only politically salient but can also give rise to potential legal
claims for citizens and others that reconstruct both the underpinning values of universal personhood and the concept of citizenship as bounded membership.110
Trying to combat the spread of a virus where there is asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic
spread unsurprisingly entails substantial incursions into personal freedoms, going beyond the
strict stay-at-home orders and travel bans that were common in the lockdowns during the socalled first wave of infections both in democracies and authoritarian states.111 Controlling the
virus has not only taken the form of isolation measures112 or access restrictions, for example, care
home or hospital visit bans, but also surveillance measures such as apps on mobile phones which
have become widespread as voluntary supplements to contact-tracing efforts in many countries,
but which residents, and especially arriving travelers, are required to use in some countries. Such
apps have profound implications for privacy if they are not set up in such a way as to remain
anonymous and unless they are designed with ethical usage in mind to avoid, for example, subtle
coercive pressures.113 Furthermore, as remote learning became increasingly normalized, the use of
apps such as proctoring software for remote examinations has also become more common.114
106
Oskar Josef Gstrein, The EU Digital COVID Certificate: A Preliminary Data Protection Impact Assessment, 12 EUR. J. RISK
REGUL. 370 (2021).
107
Sara Helen Wilford, Neil McBride, Laurence Brooks, Damian Eke, Simisola Akintoye, Adebowale Owoseni, Tonii Leach,
Catherine Flick, Malcolm Fisk & Martin Stacey, The Digital Network of Networks: Regulatory Risk and Policy Challenges of
Vaccine Passports, 12 EUR. J. RISK REGUL. 393 (2021).
108
Sarah Ganty, The Veil of the COVID-19 Vaccination Certificates: Ignorance of Poverty, Injustice Towards the Poor, 12
EUR. J. RISK REGUL. 343 (2021).
109
Sarah Haque & Laura Margottini, Red Tape Keeping Covid Vaccine Out of Reach for Nearly 4M Undocumented Migrants
Across Europe, BUREAU OF INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM (Sept. 1, 2021), https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/202109-01/red-tape-keeping-covid-vaccine-out-of-reach-for-nearly-4m-undocumented-migrants-across-europe.
110
See SHAW, supra note 25, at Ch. 5.
111
Alessandra Spadaro, COVID-19: Testing the Limits of Human Rights, 11(2) EUR. J. RISK REGUL. 317 (2020).
112
The French conseil constitutionnel decided that compulsory isolation on a generalized basis is contrary to the French
constitution in its decision of Aug. 5, 2021. Conseil constitutionnel [CC] [Constitutional Court] decision No. 2021-824D
Aug. 5, 2021, https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/decision/2021/2021824DC.htm. See also Conseil Constitutionnel, Press
release, https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/actualites/communique/decision-n-2021-824-dc-du-5-aout-2021-communiquede-presse.
113
Renate Klar & Dirk Lanzerath, The Ethics of COVID-19 Tracking Apps—Challenges and Voluntariness, 16(3-4) RSCH.
ETHICS 1 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016120943622.
114
Simon Coghlan, Tim Miller, & Jeannie Paterson, Good Proctor or “Big Brother”? AI Ethics and Online Exam Supervision
Technologies, ARXIV, (Nov. 15, 2020), https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.07647.
https://doi.org/10.1017/glj.2021.77 Published online by Cambridge University Press