Companies and researchers are frequently switching to blockchain technology in the battle against the coronavirus pandemic. Although, concerns about how this conflict influences privacy and civil liberties are increasing.

In Spain, researchers from the University of Salamanca, the Institute of Biomedical Research of Salamanca, and the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute are now operating to trace the “evolution” of the novel coronavirus utilizing a new app created on AI and blockchain.

Juan Manuel Corchado and Javier Prieto led the team behind the project. They explained in an statement that they intend to present the necessary information to doctors and other health professionals throughout the world to support them fight COVID-19. At the same time, the app is intended to assist governments in enforcing lockdowns, social distancing, and other mandates.

The app will build digital identities for people. These users can sign into the app applying these identities and collect private keys that serve as licenses that allow them to perform “essential tasks,” as determined by a given jurisdiction while continuing acquiescent with social distancing regulations.

“By providing people with an app, we are trying to guarantee that they comply with quarantine rules imposed by the government,” Corchado and Prieto said in a statement. “Each user is associated with a digital identity and can sign in with a private key to access a certificate. These certificates will allow citizens to go grocery shopping or go to work.”

The product is in line with the direction of global organizations like the World Economic Forum and the United Nations, which have long promoted the concept of digital IDs for everyone. The developing pandemic has only encouraged this argument. Still, privacy experts and civil libertarians state that this practice gives acceleration to several questions, including how governments and other bodies intend to apply these IDs and what direction they can enforce over populations.

Amongst the companies attending to bring coronavirus tracking apps to the market involve Google and Apple. Both are operating on a joint project planned to observe the spread of the virus. 

Notwithstanding assurances of privacy from both companies, some are pulling alarm bells. Jaap-Henk Hoepman, an associate professor of computer science at Radboud University, recently stated in a column that this could transform people’s smartphones into the latest surveillance tools, and could be used to control people’s habits and practices even after the pandemic is over.

The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) indicate medical data as some of the most delicate in the world, and propose the digitization of medical records, while able to revolutionize healthcare, could feign serious “ramifications” to our privacy. Concerning the government’s reply to coronavirus expressly, the EFF has warned against the growing use of surveillance technology.

“Governments around the world are demanding extraordinary new surveillance powers intended to contain the virus’ spread, often in partnership with corporations that hold vast stores of consumers’ personal data,” the data privacy organization stated in a statement. “Many proposals would invade our privacy, deter our free speech, and disparately burden vulnerable groups of people.”

It’s not clear how the group of Spanish researchers produces the app that discusses data privacy and confidentiality.

At the moment, the researchers stated in a statement that the principal difficulty the team is suffering is the absence of reliable data from other countries considering how the virus could spread. The app is recently in the proof-of-concept phase, and the team is also studying for additional funding to bring it to market quicker.