The Government, Sunday, announced mandatory record-keeping is being introduced for busy places and events to ensure the Government can contact trace quickly.

Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins says the new rules mean those responsible for businesses and events will need to ensure people keep a record when they visit, either by scanning QR codes with the Covid-19 Tracer App or making a manual record.

There will be a fine for businesses and other organisations - like churches - for failing to keep contact tracing records.

At present, the fines vary from $300 to $1000, although Hipkins says the government is reviewing the penalties.

Using the Covid sign-in app is about accuracy, speed and efficiency, Hipkins explains.

"Speed means a lot.

"It is clear that when people use the app or manually sign in, rather than relying on memory, contact tracing can happen much more quickly.

"Covid-19 can be extremely difficult to trace and contain without people keeping a good record of where they have been and who they have come into contact with."

Parish priest at St Mary of the Angels, Wellington's central Catholic church, says the 'common good' demands churches get involved.

"St Mary's relies on volunteers, and in the interest of the common good, we will do what we can to comply with government requirements," said Fr Kevin Mowbray SM.

A little further up the country, Palmerston North Cathedral priest, Dr Joseph Grayland told CathNews that the speed of the Delta variant outbreak is dramatic and the Cathedral parish will do all it can to aid in contact tracing.

Grayland said that in his experience he finds most people already use the current sign-in system.

‘I have not seen anybody refuse to sign in when they've been asked, but I have no way of actually knowing whether everybody has signed in or just waved their phone at the QR code," Grayland says.

Grayland admits his parish volunteer greeters are currently not yet equipped to deal with someone who refuses to sign in and there is little doubt there will be new skills to learn and procedures to follow.

The parish already applies with its obligations under the current Health and Safety law.

Similar comments are made by businesses.

NewsTalk ZB, Monday, reports the hospitality industry has concerns around enforcement and follow up.

"It's going to be essentially a cost to the business by then refusing entry if someone comes in. (sic)

"And then you've got the added stress on the workforce," says Hospitality New Zealand chief executive Julie White.

The Government's move comes after several Auckland Churches have been places where people have come into contact with the Delta variant.

As the pastor of a church linked to last week's Delta variant outbreak says, people come from all over Auckland to attend its Sunday services.

Parishioners from two Catholic churches in Auckland are in a like situation.

The positive case and their family members attended services at Saint Therese Catholic Church in Mangere East on August 15 while infectious.

Following the outbreak, Parish Priest Anthony Tran sent an email to parishioners "strongly encouraging" them to get tested.

Parishioners of Saint Anthony's Catholic Church in Mangere Bridge are also considered contacts of the case.

Source

• RNZ
• TVNZ
• RNZ
• COVID-19
• NZ Herald
• NewstalkZB
• Image: Stuff

Manual tracing is resource-intensive and ineffective. A number of countries, including Singapore and Australia, have adopted smartphone apps using Bluetooth.

New Zealand seems likely to follow a similar path.

These apps vary in detail but all work along more or less the following lines:

• Users download the app onto their smartphone and enable Bluetooth.
• Identifying information is required but converted into an anonymised ID.
• When a phone with the app installed comes within a specified distance, for a specified time, of another phone with the app, encrypted contact information is exchanged.

The exchanged information remains on users' phones for the period someone with the virus might have transmitted it to others.

At the end of that period - probably 14 to 21 days - the information is automatically deleted.

If one of the users is diagnosed with Covid-19, a health professional will give them a code which automatically sends a signal to all contacts on the app and the user's app may change colour, perhaps turning red.

When users receive such a signal (their app may also change colour, perhaps turning orange) they will be required to self-isolate or be tested. If they isolate, their app will return to its default colour (say, green) at the end of the specified isolation.

If they opt for a test, a health professional will give them a code which will turn their app green if negative, and red if positive.

As with all potentially intrusive technological initiatives, these apps raise important ethical issues addressed in the following guidelines.

Benefits must outweigh risks

Ultimately, the ethical justification of tracing apps rests upon their capacity to deliver significant benefits to communities and individuals in ways which respect legitimate concerns about consent, privacy, and fairness.

This means there is an obligation to identify benefits and risks. Risks must be recognised and accepted, mitigated as far as possible and outweighed by countervailing benefits.

Use must be voluntary

One significant difference between approaches to contact tracing is the extent to which they require user consent.

Australia and Singapore encourage but do not require citizens to use their apps and New Zealand seems certain to take a similar approach. The app will work on a person's phone only if they download it, enable Bluetooth and carry their phones with them.

The voluntary approach carries some risks, with uptake the most obvious barrier.

Estimates of uptake levels required to deliver the benefits of the app vary between 40 and 60 percent.

Below those levels, too many contacts of confirmed cases will not be registered and won't be contacted automatically.

Concerns about uptake have led some governments - Israel, Poland, South Korea - to set aside individual consent. But consent is the most obvious way we show respect for the moral agency of others and we should not set it aside lightly.

More practically, regulations that lose common support are rarely successful: compulsion is usually not very effective.

So consent is crucial: Those downloading and enabling such apps must explicitly consent to their functions, and must have access to clear and understandable information about how it works, and what they need to do if they receive a positive diagnosis or a signal indicating they have been in contact with an infected person.

To ensure consent is informed, there must be as much transparency as possible about how the apps work and about the processes they set in train.

Apps must not be used beyond Covid-19

There is a predictable and reasonable concern that such apps might be used for purposes other than Covid control.

For example, just who has this suspected drug dealer been in contact with in the past fortnight?

Guarantees must be provided such apps will be used only for Covid-19 management, and they must have a use-by date after which they will cease to function.

Ethical concerns

There are a cluster of related ethical concerns around privacy, confidentiality, and security. The apps and processes around their use must:

• be designed and implemented to minimise the impact on privacy, with guarantees around limited use;
• minimise the use of identifiable information and protect any identifiable information which is used;
• be designed and implemented in ways that prevent unauthorised access to information and misuse of the app or its processes.

Equity issues

The impacts of Covid-19 have not been felt equally across the community.

Tracing apps could exacerbate legitimate concerns for fairness and equity. For instance, socially and economically disadvantaged individuals and groups are less likely to have access to smartphones, but the benefits and burdens of these apps should be delivered equitably across the community.

Efforts must be made to identify and address likely inequities in the uptake and use of tracing apps to address social and economic disadvantage. Continue reading