No abstract

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, a variety of digital technologies have been leveraged for public health surveillance worldwide. However, concerns remain around the rapid development and deployment of digital technologies, how these technologies have been used, and their efficacy in supporting public health goals. Following the five-stage scoping review framework, we conducted a scoping review of the peer-reviewed and grey literature to identify the types and nature of digital technologies used for surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic and the success of these measures. We conducted a search of the peer-reviewed and grey literature published between 1 December 2019 and 31 December 2020 to provide a snapshot of questions, concerns, discussions, and findings emerging at this pivotal time. A total of 147 peer-reviewed and 79 grey literature publications reporting on digital technology use for surveillance across 90 countries and regions were retained for analysis. The most frequently used technologies included mobile phone devices and applications, location tracking technologies, drones, temperature scanning technologies, and wearable devices. The utility of digital technologies for public health surveillance was impacted by factors including uptake of digital technologies across targeted populations, technological capacity and errors, scope, validity and accuracy of data, guiding legal frameworks, and infrastructure to support technology use. Our findings raise important questions around the value of digital surveillance for public health and how to ensure successful use of technologies while mitigating potential harms not only in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also during other infectious disease outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics.

IntroductionInfectious diseases pose a risk to public health, requiring efficient strategies for disease prevention. Digital health surveillance technologies provide new opportunities to enhance disease prevention, detection, tracking, reporting and analysis. However, in addition to concerns regarding the effectiveness of these technologies in meeting public health goals, there are also concerns regarding the ethics, legality, safety and sustainability of digital surveillance technologies. This scoping review examines the literature on digital surveillance for public health purposes during the COVID-19 pandemic to identify health-related applications of digital surveillance technologies, and to highlight discussions of the implications of these technologies.Methods and analysisThe scoping review will be guided by the framework proposed by Arksey and O’Malley and the guidelines outlined by Colquhoun et al and Levac et al. We will search Medline (Ovid), PsycInfo, PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL (EBSCOhost), ACM Digital Library, Google Scholar and IEEE Explore for relevant studies published between December 2019 and December 2020. The review will also include grey literature. Data will be managed and analysed through an extraction table and thematic analysis.Ethics and disseminationFindings will be disseminated through traditional academic channels, as well as social media channels and research briefs and infographics. We will target our dissemination to provincial and federal public health organisations, as well as technology companies and community-based organisations managing the public response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

No abstract

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted the deployment of digital technologies for public health surveillance globally. The rapid development and use of these technologies has curtailed opportunities to fully consider their potential impacts (e.g., for human rights, civil liberties, privacy, marginalization of vulnerable groups, etc.). OBJECTIVE We conducted a scoping review of the peer-reviewed and grey literature to identify the types and applications of digital technologies used for surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic and the predicted and witnessed consequences of digital surveillance. METHODS Our methodology was informed by the five-stage methodological framework to guide scoping reviews: identifying the research question, identifying relevant studies, study selection, charting the data, and collating, summarizing, and reporting the findings. We conducted a search of peer-reviewed and grey literature published between December 1, 2019 and December 31, 2020. We focused on the first year of the pandemic to provide a snapshot of questions, concerns, findings, and discussions emerging from the peer-reviewed and grey literature during this pivotal first year of the pandemic. Our review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) Protocols reporting guidelines. RESULTS We reviewed a total of 147 peer-reviewed and 79 grey literature publications. A total of 90 countries and regions were identified in which digital technologies were used for public health surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the most frequently used technologies included mobile phone applications, location tracking technologies, drones, temperature scanning technologies, and wearable devices. We found that authors raised concerns regarding the implications of digital surveillance in areas including: data security and privacy, function creep and mission creep, private sector involvement in surveillance, human rights, civil liberties, and impacts on marginalized groups. We also identified recommendations for ethical digital technology design and use including proportionality, transparency, purpose limitation, protecting privacy and security, and accountability. CONCLUSIONS A wide range of digital technologies were used worldwide to support public health surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of our analysis highlight the importance of considering short- and long-term consequences of digital surveillance not only during the COVID-19 pandemic but also for future public health crises. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT RR2-https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-053962