ArmInfo. With governments across the world rapidly expanding the use of digital surveillance in an attempt to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, Amnesty International and other leading NGOs have set out strict conditions that must be met to  safeguard human rights and prevent surveillance overreach.  

More than 100 hundred civil society groups joined Amnesty in signing  the joint statement published on Amnesty International website. 

Surveillance measures adopted to address the pandemic must be lawful,  necessary and proportionate. They must be provided for by law and  must be justified by legitimate public health objectives, as  determined by the appropriate public health authorities, and be  proportionate to those needs. Governments must be transparent about  the measures they are taking so that they can be scrutinized and if  appropriate later modified, retracted, or overturned. We cannot allow  the COVID-19 pandemic to serve as an excuse for indiscriminate mass  surveillance. 

If governments expand monitoring and surveillance powers then such  powers must be time-bound, and only continue for as long as necessary  to address the current pandemic. We cannot allow the COVID-19  pandemic to serve as an excuse for indefinite surveillance, the  statement reads. 

States must ensure that increased collection, retention, and  aggregation of personal data, including health data, is only used for  the purposes of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Data collected,  retained, and aggregated to respond to the pandemic must be limited  in scope, time-bound in relation to the pandemic and must not be used  for commercial or any other purposes.

"Technology can play an important role in the global effort to  combat the COVID-19 pandemic, however, this does not give governments  carte blanche to expand digital surveillance. The recent past has  shown governments are reluctant to relinquish temporary surveillance  powers. We must not sleepwalk into a permanent expanded surveillance  state now," said Rasha Abdul Rahim, Deputy Director of Amnesty Tech.

"Increased digital surveillance to tackle this public health  emergency, can only be used if certain strict conditions are met.  Authorities cannot simply disregard the right to privacy and must  ensure any new measures have robust human rights safeguards. Wherever  governments use the power of technology as part of their strategy to  beat COVID-19, they must do so in a way that respects human rights."