Reports on the use of AI to respond to COVID-19 may have been greatly exaggerated. But does the rush to pandemic-fighting solutions like thermal scanners, face recognition and immunity passports signal the normalization of surveillance technologies?

Digital technologies have been touted as a solution to the COVID-19 outbreak since early in the pandemic. AlgorithmWatch, a non-profit research and advocacy organisation to evaluate and shed light on algorithmic decision making processes, just published a report on Automated Decision-Making Systems in the COVID-19 Pandemic, examining the use of technology to respond to COVID-19.

The report has a European lens, as AlgorithmWatch focuses on the use of digital technology in the EU. Its findings, however, are interesting and applicable regardless of geographies, as they refer to the same underlying principles and technologies. Furthermore, there is reference and comparison to the use of technology worldwide.

The reports sets the stage by introducing the distinction between Artificial Intelligence(AI) and Automated Decision-Making (ADM). AlgorithmWatch notes that AI is a vague and much hyped term, to which they have long preferred the more rigorous locution ADM. AlgorithmWatch defines an ADM system as:

“A socio-technological framework that encompasses a decision-making model, an algorithm that translates this model into computable code, the data this code uses as an input — either to ‘learn’ from it or to analyse it by applying the model — and the entire political and economic environment surrounding its use.”

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