EU human rights groups call for COVID-19 app transparency

A cross-section of human right groups belonging to the Civil Liberties Union for Europe has, according to a news report, filed Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, pressing national authorities in 9 European countries to provide information on how it collects and processes data collected through contact-tracking applications. The aim of the campaign according to the group is to ensure that national authorities do not collect so much information other than the minimum and thereby breach the human rights of citizens even as they work to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, the human rights group have the aim to prevent European governments from using the pandemic as a means “for normalising the expanded use of invasive digital surveillance technologies.”