Pandemics, Public Data, and Privacy

Mobile data records, tracking devices and government-mandated selfies have played a large role in both enforcing quarantines and providing data to better understand the coronavirus. In this week’s episode of Consequential, hosts Eugene and Lauren talk to Wilbert Van Panhuis, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh; Tom Mitchell, the Lead Technologist of the Block Center and a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University; and Scott Andes, the Executive Director of the Block Center, about the importance of collecting and using data for public health, the individual privacy concerns that arise as a result of this data collection, and the challenges of striking a balance between societal benefit and personal privacy. This episode is part one of a two-episode look on large-scale public health data analytics.