The COVID-19 pandemic has called for unprecedented responses from different sectors of society. In a quest to curb the spread of the virus and mitigate new means of living in a pandemic, The Namibian adopted contact tracing and surveillance system. A process of identification of persons who may have come into contact with an infected person (“contacts”) and subsequent collection of further information about these contacts. This system would pose serious challenges to the protection of personal data as the process led to enforcement of new guidelines that which specifically that enforced businesses to keep clientele log to assist with contact tracing.
Collecting personal data without an enabling legal framework however, proved challenging for both users, the state and establishments with many users fearing abusing of their data and questioning the effectiveness mean of surveillance, business establishments left with large data that they do not know how to store, how and when to dispose it.
Our research has led to a number of findings as detailed in link below. Happy reading and we look forward to your feedback.