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Short abstract:

(Privacy by )Design-based approaches mediated the controversy on digital contact tracing, both addressing public concerns, but also enabling private sector hold on digital infrastructures for public health provision. This raises questions about the technological mediation of political sovereignty.

Long abstract:

Digital contact tracing was introduced as part of digital COVID-19 pandemic preparedness, in which preparedness merged with digital innovation, regulation and issues of infrastructural sovereignty. The contact-tracing approach to digitally track and trace, triggered public controversies over the specter of encompassing surveillance. The resolution of the controversy came to turn predominantly (but not only) on matters pertaining to privacy, especially so-called ‘privacy-by-design’, through which more privacy-friendly solutions become built into smart phones operating systems and digital infrastructures. These solutions however also facilitated a shift away from state-based initiatives to the private sector (Google & Apple), thus extending their hold on the informational infrastructures underlying public health provision. We will discuss these developments in the light of recent turns towards design- and engineering-based approaches to governance and argue three main points: first, that there is a need to pay closer scrutiny to what actually happens as governance issues become subject to design and engineering. Second, we argue that issues relating to ongoing digital preparedness also raise questions of a political nature, i.e., discussions over digital infrastructural sovereignty. Finally, we argue for the need to pay closer attention to the material and technological reconfigurations that increasingly come to mediate these political matters.