Hello, you're back with Emlex's weekly podcast. I'm James Panicki from Emlex's Asia-Pacific team. I hope you're well in these difficult times. It's great to be back with you.

And as I speak to you

today, I'm looking at a COVID-19 tracking app downloaded to my smartphone. Now, every

jurisdiction that has tried to develop something along these lines has used one of a handful

of technological options, all of them with their own challenges and weak points. But one consistent

theme of these apps has been the

concerns over privacy that they've raised, prompting authorities in some jurisdictions to offer

solid privacy safeguards as part of the rollout. Allaying those concerns is central to any

voluntary contact tracing app because unless there's confidence in the app's safety, you'll fail

to reach the sign-up threshold that allows the app to be effective.

Emlex's global team of privacy and data security reporters has been following this very issue

with great attention, and among them is Vesla Gladiqiva, a senior reporter covering telecoms,

media and technology, who joins me now from London.

So Vesela, different countries around the world are taking very different approaches to contact tracing apps.

Why are we seeing such divergence and what kinds of risks does that bring?

The first thing to say is that just like there are no unified laws around the world on how

to protect personal data, there isn't a single approach to developing and rolling out contact

tracing apps.

And a few issues have really come to the fall in the past couple of weeks from our coverage

around the world and the debates that have taken place. And one specific issue that keeps cropping

up is about, you know, where to store the data that these apps collect centrally or locally on the device.

And that has really split governments and privacy advocates.

...