UCL plays key role in bringing ethical thinking to pandemic policy-making

UCL researchers will be at the heart of an initiative to bring the best possible expertise to the ethical challenges policy makers face tackling COVID-19. Th e UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator will harness and mobilise the UK's internationally renowned expertise in ethics research. The collaboration between UCL, Oxford, Bristol and Edinburgh universities and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics has received £1.4m of funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) as part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)'s rapid response to COVID-19. Focusing on the ethics of data collection and use during a pandemic, UCL's part in the project is being led by Dr Melanie Smallman (UCL Science & Technology Studies) and Professor James Wilson (UCL Philosophy). The team has already fed into current government and policy considerations around possible immunity passports, arguing that besides possible discrimination, crucial ethical questions include: who owns the data and how any data collection infrastructures can be dismantled after the pandemic? Dr Melanie Smallman said: "From track and trace apps and immunity passports, to algorithm driven school assessments and online worker surveillance, the COVID-19 crisis is pushing forward data-based technologies at an unprecedented speed and scale. In thinking through the ethical issues this presents - and encouraging policymakers to do likewise - we hope to help avoid the possibility of sleepwalking into a troubling future." Professor James Wilson said: "As well as world-leading science, policymakers also need to draw on world-leading ethics if they want to build public trust and accountability in their actions to tackle COVID-19.