Digital Contact Tracking: A Threat to Civil Liberty or a Moral Obligation

Abstract

The paper focuses on the ethical dilemmas related to the technology of digital contact tracing (DCT). The author reviewed existing arguments and offers a new classification of approaches to this problem. Ethical justifications to implementation of DCT can be divided into utilitarian and conditional (deontological) approaches. The author tries to prove that the conditional approach is more effective, and it might become the basis for the ethical analysis of specific public health decisions. In conclusion, it demonstrates that the conditional (deontological) approach to the ethical justification of DCT might be used in the discussion about digital vaccination passports (DVP).