Pandemics, privacy, and public health research

Addressing Privacy Concerns in Sharing Viral Sequences and Minimum Contextual Data in a Public Repository During the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 was declared to be a pandemic in March 2020 by the World Health Organization. Timely sharing of viral genomic sequencing data accompanied by a minimal set of contextual data is essential for informing regional, national, and international public health responses. Such contextual data is also necessary for developing, and improving clinical therapies and vaccines, and enhancing the scientific community’s understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The Canadian COVID-19 Genomics Network (CanCOGeN) was launched in April 2020 to coordinate and upscale existing genomics-based COVID-19 research and surveillance efforts. CanCOGeN is performing large-scale sequencing of both the genomes of SARS-CoV-2 virus samples (VirusSeq) and affected Canadians (HostSeq). This paper addresses the privacy concerns associated with sharing the viral sequence data with a pre-defined set of contextual data describing the sample source and case attribute of the sequence data in the Canadian context. Currently, the viral genome sequences are shared by provincial public health laboratories and their healthcare and academic partners, with the Canadian National Microbiology Laboratory and with publicly accessible databases. However, data sharing delays and the provision of incomplete contextual data often occur because publicly releasing such data triggers privacy and data governance concerns. The CanCOGeN Ethics and Governance Expert Working Group thus has investigated several privacy issues cited by CanCOGeN data providers/stewards. This paper addresses these privacy concerns and offers insights primarily in the Canadian context, although similar privacy considerations also exist in other jurisdictions. We maintain that sharing viral sequencing data and its limited associated contextual data in the public domain generally does not pose insurmountable privacy challenges. However, privacy risks associated with reidentification should be actively monitored due to advancements in reidentification methods and the evolving pandemic landscape. We also argue that during a global health emergency such as COVID-19, privacy should not be used as a blanket measure to prevent such genomic data sharing due to the significant benefits it provides towards public health responses and ongoing research activities.

Achieving data privacy for decision support systems in times of massive data sharing

The world is suffering from a new pandemic of Covid-19 that is affecting human lives. The collection of records for Covid-19 patients is necessary to tackle that situation. The decision support systems (DSS) are used to gather that records. The researchers access the patient's data through DSS and perform predictions on the severity and effect of the Covid-19 disease; in contrast, unauthorized users can also access the data for malicious purposes. For that reason, it is a challenging task to protect Covid-19 patient data. In this paper, we proposed a new technique for protecting Covid-19 patients' data. The proposed model consists of two folds. Firstly, Blowfish encryption uses to encrypt the identity attributes. Secondly, it uses Pseudonymization to mask identity and quasi-attributes, then all the data links with one another, such as the encrypted, masked, sensitive, and non-sensitive attributes. In this way, the data becomes more secure from unauthorized access.

International transfers of personal data for health research following Schrems II: a problem in need of a solution

On 16 July 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued their decision in the Schrems II case concerning Facebook's transfers of personal data from the EU to the US. The decision may have significant effects on the legitimate transfer of personal data for health research purposes from the EU. This article aims: (i) to outline the consequences of the Schrems II decision for the sharing of personal data for health research between the EU and third countries, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic; and, (ii) to consider certain options available to address the consequences of the decision and to facilitate international data exchange for health research moving forward.

Exploring Changes to the Actionability of COVID-19 Dashboards Over the Course of 2020 in the Canadian Context: Descriptive Assessment and Expert Appraisal Study

BACKGROUND

Public web-based COVID-19 dashboards are in use worldwide to communicate pandemic-related information. Actionability of dashboards, as a predictor of their potential use for data-driven decision-making, was assessed in a global study during the early stages of the pandemic. It revealed a widespread lack of features needed to support actionability. In view of the inherently dynamic nature of dashboards and their unprecedented speed of creation, the evolution of dashboards and changes to their actionability merit exploration.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to explore how COVID-19 dashboards evolved in the Canadian context during 2020 and whether the presence of actionability features changed over time.

METHODS

We conducted a descriptive assessment of a pan-Canadian sample of COVID-19 dashboards (N=26), followed by an appraisal of changes to their actionability by a panel of expert scorers (N=8). Scorers assessed the dashboards at two points in time, July and November 2020, using an assessment tool informed by communication theory and health care performance intelligence. Applying the nominal group technique, scorers were grouped in panels of three, and evaluated the presence of the seven defined features of highly actionable dashboards at each time point.

RESULTS

Improvements had been made to the dashboards over time. These predominantly involved data provision (specificity of geographic breakdowns, range of indicators reported, and explanations of data sources or calculations) and advancements enabled by the technologies employed (customization of time trends and interactive or visual chart elements). Further improvements in actionability were noted especially in features involving local-level data provision, time-trend reporting, and indicator management. No improvements were found in communicative elements (clarity of purpose and audience), while the use of storytelling techniques to narrate trends remained largely absent from the dashboards.

CONCLUSIONS

Improvements to COVID-19 dashboards in the Canadian context during 2020 were seen mostly in data availability and dashboard technology. Further improving the actionability of dashboards for public reporting will require attention to both technical and organizational aspects of dashboard development. Such efforts would include better skill-mixing across disciplines, continued investment in data standards, and clearer mandates for their developers to ensure accountability and the development of purpose-driven dashboards.

Longitudinal Health Studies: Secondary Uses Serving the Future

Our research compares the ethical and institutional conditions that govern the sharing and secondary use of longitudinal population health data from multiple cohorts. The data use and data sharing conditions applicable to 27 population health cohorts were assessed. This assessment was performed in consulting the informed consent materials and institutional policies applicable to the use of data. Descriptions drawn from the research ethics consent materials were refined through dialog with the institutional staff responsible for overseeing access to data, where possible. Our results demonstrate that data of longitudinal population health cohorts assessed can generally be shared and used for secondary purposes. However, the purposes of secondary use and the preconditions applicable thereto are highly variable. Heterogeneous use conditions can also impede the storage of legacy research data and the pooling thereof for the purpose of common reuse.