engleski

Ethical and Legal Issues in Using of the Mobile Communication Technology in Prevention of Spreading of Infectious Diseases

Paper analyses ethical and legal issues in using of certain measures in order to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. New strain of the infectious disease SARS-CoV-2 (virus), named COVID-19, significantly changed the world and our lives that we lived before its outbreak. Due to the pandemic situation and problem with spreading of the virus, many countries started to implement different preventive and restrictive measures based on recommendations of epidemiologists, which have restricted some fundamental human rights and freedoms guaranteed by international conventions and national legislation. In order to prevent the spread of the virus, some countries proposed implementation of the measures that significantly intervene in human rights and freedoms, like monitoring of social distancing of their citizens through communication technologies and mobile phone applications. However, such forms of encroachment on fundamental human rights constitute an ultima ratio measure, which is controversial from both an ethical and a legal point of view. COVID-19 is new disease for which medicine and epidemiologists still don’t have appropriate solutions to effectively prevent its spread, so the authors were only able to analyse ethical and legal aspects of some proposed measures that include the use of communication technology infrastructures and mobile communications applications to prevent its spread. The authors use the methodology of generalization, deductive, inductive and synthesis method. After the research authors concluded that in the circumstances of spreading of a relatively unknown infectious disease, there is a necessity and need for implementation of preventive measures aimed at stopping the spread of the disease and protecting human health. However, some methods, especially those based on broad monitoring of human movement through communication technologies, constitute a gross encroachment on fundamental human rights and cannot justify their role in the spread of infectious diseases, while other methods that violate human rights and freedoms to a lesser extent haven’t been used.

COVID-19 ; human rights ; communication technology ; mobile phone application ; right to privacy

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