PD 05 - Human Rights in the Age of AI and Digital Health

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a fundamental global transformation towards new digital and artificial intelligence (AI)-based technologies in healthcare. Over the past year, we have seen that in response to the current global public health crisis, the use of new digital tools and AI for tasks ranging from digital epidemiological surveillance to contact tracing or diagnostics has been rapidly expanding in many countries. But the pandemic is only accelerating a trend that was already underway before: enabled by the convergence of big health data with massive advances in information technology (IT) and artificial intelligence (AI), there has been a massive growth of innovative applications in disease prevention, diagnostics, treatment, but also for more efficient resource allocation, remote training or pre-basic care. Many governments, international organizations and private actors alike herald “digital health” as critical to solve the challenges and gaps in the delivery of quality health care. WHO maintains, for example, that “the use and scale up of digital health solutions can revolutionize how people worldwide achieve higher standards of health, and access services to promote and protect their health and well-being.” Digital health provides opportunities to accelerate progress towards attaining SDG 3, including the advancement of health-related human rights. Yet we must not be deluded: Without human rights safeguards, comprehensive governance mechanisms and inclusive public consultation, digital health technologies can also quickly turn into a grave danger to human rights and health equity. This panel investigates how AI and digital health technologies can be leveraged without undermining human rights.