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44 Europe The Economist April 25th 2020

Charlemagne Testing the faith

Covid-19 is bad news for Europe’s privacy panjandrums

ments are toying with tracing apps, where smartphones would tell
users whether they interacted with someone who had covid-19.
But such apps work well only when large proportions of the pop-
ulation download them. No matter how technically ingenious a
solution may appear, it is little use without mass consent. Other
governments have gone further. Poland, for instance, enforces a
quarantine of those suffering from covid-19 with the aid of an app.
(Those under quarantine must submit regular selfies to prove they
are staying at home.) For the bulk of eucitizens, covid-19 is the first
time that the eu’s piety on privacy could come with a cost borne by
themselves rather than by business. During the pandemic, people
have willingly—and occasionally grudgingly—sat at home for
weeks on end, surrendering their freedom in the process. Sacrific-
ing privacy for the sake of liberty may appeal after a long enough
period of de facto house arrest.
Such choices have not been put to voters before. In the eu pri-
vacy has long been a top-down pursuit, waged against fierce oppo-
sition from gigantic corporations by politicians and bureaucrats
who do not have to worry about security, but tend to believe that
citizens will love them for protecting their privacy. Enthusiasm for
the topic in Brussels is also boosted by two not entirely high-mind-
ed considerations. First, it helps the eu project power externally.
f the eu had an official religion, it would be privacy. A devout Strict standards combined with the eu’s enormous market are
Ipriesthood of eu officials and politicians preach that only their enough to bully even the largest global business into following
privacy laws can lead to salvation. Holy texts, such as the General Brussels’s rules, a phenomenon known as the “Brussels effect”.
Data Protection Regulation or the ePrivacy Directive, are held up as Rather than operating to different standards globally, big compa-
wisdom the whole world would be better off following. Such is the nies save themselves the bother and work to the eu’s usually high-
regulatory clout of Brussels that much of it often does. Those who er standard. Second, it gives Brussels more power internally, too.
break such strictures are smitten (or whacked with fines of up to When the eu limited itself to the nitty-gritty of business, the rul-
4% of global turnover). In an age of coronavirus, as policymakers ings of the eu’s Court of Justice in Luxembourg carried little inter-
ponder ways of ending the lockdown, this belief is being tested. est for ordinary citizens. Regulations on, say, chemicals affected
A crisis of faith has taken root among once-true believers. “It is only the chemicals industry. But issues such as data protection cut
a trade-off,” warned Austria’s right-wing chancellor, Sebastian across vast swathes of people’s lives, from browsing habits to free-
Kurz. “What is more important to us? Data protection or that peo- dom of expression, and judges tend to meddle.
ple can return to normal? Data protection or saving lives?” Even
German politicians, hitherto the high priests of the faithful, have Privacy has a price
joined in. Jens Spahn, the German health minister, suggested For most European citizens, arguments about privacy have been
tracking people’s phones in order to contain the virus, before back- about as intelligible as a mass in Latin. A consequence of the
ing down after an outcry. It is as if the pope began a sermon by ad- coronavirus could be a more comprehensible debate. Any trade-
mitting that perhaps Martin Luther had a point. offs between health and privacy will be subject to public scrutiny,
Countries full of privacy heathens have enthusiastically put the just like the ever-shifting balance between civil liberties and coun-
state’s surveillance capacity to use. In Hong Kong, new arrivals can ter-terrorism, argues Bruno Maçães, an author and former Europe
be required to wear a tracking bracelet. Israel has enlisted its intel- minister of Portugal. Norms are still being settled. Data protection,
ligence agencies to track people who may have the virus. In South the jewel in the eu’s regulatory crown, dragged the once-arcane
Korea officials root through everything from taxi receipts to credit- world of privacy into the sphere of high politics. The virus provides
card records to hunt for those infected. Now the eu is mulling voters with the topic’s first real public reckoning.
where to draw the line between safety and surveillance. A nervous discourse has already started among Europe’s deci-
Whether Europe veers from its righteous path is a political sion-makers, who were in a funk about the eu’s place in the world
question, rather than a legal one. Though its laws are strict, exemp- even before covid-19 devastated the bloc’s economy and left nearly
tions for public-health crises are written into eu rules on, say, data 100,000 of its citizens dead, with doubtless much more disaster
protection. But these are far from a carte blanche. Any use of data still to come. If other systems of governance, whether outright
must be proportionate and fall away once the crisis has passed. autocracy or “managed” democracy, are seen to handle the virus
When it comes to pandemics, Europe’s privacy laws are a seatbelt better, it could push them into a crisis of confidence. Their lofty
rather than a handbrake, says Eduardo Ustaran, a lawyer at Hogan ambitions on privacy could well be jettisoned in such circum-
Lovells, a British-American law firm. Governments can still get stances. Defending a political system by ditching one of its funda-
where they need to go, but they experience less chance of a cata- mental tenets may seem self-defeating. But politics is a results
strophic accident—such as an entire country’s medical data being business. eu governments will be judged on how quickly life re-
sprayed onto the internet—on the way. turns to normal, with states that used heavy-handed surveillance
It is Europe’s citizens, not its lawyers, who will decide how the obvious comparison. If a gap emerges, even the apostles of pri-
much intrusion they are willing to bear. Most European govern- vacy may find it hard to keep the faith. 7