Funding of an international interdisciplinary project to understand about the designs of COVID-19 tracking apps and the impact on human rights.

The project entitled “Developing the socio-technical architecture method to inform policy choices in the shaping of COVID-19 digital infrastructure” is funded by the VolkswagenStiftung. In an interdisciplinary collaboration between Prof. Niva Elkin-Koren (The Buchmann Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University, Israel), Wolfgang Schulz (Leibniz Institute for Media Research │ Hans Bredow Institute (HBI) in Hamburg, Germany), and Tilo Böhmann (IT Management & Consulting (ITMC), University of Hamburg, Germany), the project aims to develop a framework to inform policy choices in the shaping of digital infrastructures. Various COVID-19 tracking apps developed in Germany and Israel will be studied to understand the implications of different design decisions. In the end, this should result in an understanding that supports the assessment of the impact of policy decisions related to technologies during crises and beyond, including the impact on human rights. The project is supported on the German side by Christian Kurtz (IT Management & Consulting (ITMC), University of Hamburg, Germany) and Florian Wittner (Leibniz Institute for Media Research │ Hans Bredow Institute (HBI) in Hamburg, Germany). The start of the project is in spring 2021. The basis for the joint exchange and collaboration was the participation in the Summer School organized by the project Information Governance Technologies.