Category: Data

Twitter Purges ‘Fake’ Accounts Glorifying Turkish Leader

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Twitter said it had removed 7,340 “fake and compromised” accounts on Friday, which were linked to the youth branch of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, AKP.

“The collection of fake and compromised accounts was being used to amplify political narratives favourable to the AKP, and demonstrated strong support for President Erdogan. We’re disclosing 7,340 accounts to the archive today,” Twitter wrote.

On Friday Twitter disclosed more than 32,000 accounts in all, mostly from China – 23,750 accounts, Turkey and Russia because they were suspected of being “state-linked information operations”.

Twitter said it had worked with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute ASPI and Stanford Internet Observatory SIO and had shared relevant data with them.

“Collaborative research provides us with a way to learn from past operations and mitigate future malign efforts,” SIO wrote on Twitter’s latest decision.

According to media reports, Erdogan ruling party and its youth branch run tens of thousands of essentially fake accounts, promoting the President. These accounts are often nicknamed the “Ak Trolls”.

Twitter also said that the accounts had hacked other accounts that were more critical of President Erdogan. They were also used for commercial activities, such as cryptocurrency-related spam.

Twitter’s policy on manipulation and spam prohibits “coordinated activity that attempts to artificially influence conversations through the use of multiple accounts, fake accounts, automation and/or scripting”.

Twitter previously deleted thousands of accounts from Egypt, Honduras, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Serbia for similar reasons.

Serbia was by far the top country in terms of the number of removed accounts. Twitter axed almost 9,000 accounts in April that were promoting Serbia’s ruling Progressive Party and its leader, President Aleksandar Vucic, so violating company policy on manipulation and spam.

Computer Virus Stops Sarajevo Municipality Issuing Birth Certificates

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

A Sarajevo municipality has temporarily stopped issuing birth certificates due to a computer virus that locks documents in its database for the second time in some two weeks.  

The central Centar Municipality, whose offices are next door to the Bosnian presidency building, said on its website that the problem caused by a “ransomware virus” was detected on Saturday. Such viruses typically block computer systems and their originators demand payment in exchange for removing them.  

But the municipality denied that it was the target of a hacker attack, or that the central electronic register with all birth and death certificates in Bosnia’s Federation entity was in danger of being wiped out, as the Interior Ministry of the Federation entity was quoted as saying by the media.   

“Information about a targeted attack on the IT system of the Center Municipality and the destruction of the registar and documents is not true,” the municipality said. It added the problem was reported to the police, as it was the second time in a little over two weeks that this happened.  

On May 22, the municipality reported on its website that the issue of birth, death and marriage certificates was stopped because of “an electrical problem” but added that it was soon resolved.

Bosnia lags behind with the introduction of e-government, but the Centar municipality has provided a number of services electronically. 

Insults, Leaks and Fraud: Digital Violations Thrive amid Pandemic

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

From January 26 to May 26, BIRN collected information about 163 cases of breaches of digital rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia.

Sixty-eight of the cases related to the manipulation in digital environment, while 25 related to publishing falsehoods and unverified information with the intention to damage someone’s reputation.

BIRN’s monitoring of digital rights, developed together with the SHARE Foundation, has shown that ordinary people were the most affected by such violations, with members of the public being the target in 126 of the cases.

State institutions or state officials violated digital rights in a total of 37 cases, meanwhile.

States rarely addressed the abuses arising from these violations, and in 45 cases, the perpetrators were not identified, while 139 of the total of 163 cases were not resolved.

Eight cases were the result of pressure related to the publication of information, 12 were linked to insults and unfounded accusations and 11 were hate speech and discrimination.

Medical and personal data breaches featured in 18 cases, computer fraud was registered on 11 occasions, while the destruction and theft of data and programs happened in three cases.

Beyond the countries listed above, BIRN noticed an unprecedented rise of digital violations in Montenegro and Turkey, where there were arbitrary arrests and data breaches.

Hackers, data breaches and illegal processing


Infografic: BIRN

Leaked documents, fake websites and the publication of people’s personal and health data have been commonplaces during the ongoing pandemic, but the scale and consequences of the breaches and of the illegal processing of data has yet to be established.

Speculation about the number and identity of COVID-19-infected people led to the mass exposure of personal and private data on social media and messaging platforms. In some cases, the leaks were small in terms of data, but had potentially serious consequences, particularly in situations in which patients’ personal data was revealed.

The most serious cases were reported in Croatia, North Macedonia and Montenegro.

In March in Croatia, a message containing a list of infected patients was shared among people living on the island of Murter, mostly through messaging apps.

Illegal personal data processing and privacy breaches took place in North Macedonia as well. The country’s Agency for Personal Data Protection filed criminal charges against an unknown person for publishing the personal data of people living in the town of Kumanovo.

The public in Serbia became concerned when it was discovered that the login credentials for Serbia’s information system for analysis and storage of health data during the pandemic were publicly available on a health institution website for eight days.

Citizens of Montenegro suffered most from stigmatisation due to a number of leaks of COVID-19 patients’ records. The infected patients’ identities were revealed in posts on social media, sparking hate speech against them.

Individuals who were violated self-isolation measures were also targeted, and often, it was governments that were revealing their personal information.

In Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, authorities launched a website on which they published the names of people who did not follow the entity’s self-isolation measures. The list can still be found online.

As a measure against the spread of the coronavirus, Montenegro’s government published a list of individuals who were put in self-isolation after  returning home from abroad. The lists, structured by municipalities, include the individuals’ names, surnames, the date when they were put into isolation, and their home addresses. The list was only removed a month after it was published.

People were also targeted by hacker attacks and fraudulent messages or emails, usually trying to collect their personal information or request payments to foreign banks or crypto-currency accounts, as cybercriminals took advantage of the public concerns and confusion created by the pandemic.

Scams, phishing campaigns and cyber-attacks exploiting people’s fear of COVID-19 were most common in Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, North Macedonia and Romania. The Romanian cybersecurity giant Bitdefender said in March that such attempts at fraud “have risen by 475 per cent in March as compared to the previous month”, and were expected to keep increasing.

Threats, hate speech and discrimination


Infographic: BIRN 

While some countries limited the scope of the freedom of speech during the pandemic, some people used their online freedom to unleash threats, insults, discriminatory posts and hate campaigns.

BIRN’s overview looked at several categories of violations:

  • Hate speech and discrimination
  • Threatening content and the endangerment of security
  • Insults and unfounded accusations
  • Falsehoods and unverified information directed towards the damaging of reputations

In total, more than 15 per cent of all the cases that were monitored included one of these violations. The largest number –

This type of online behaviour was often combined with the use of fake accounts and the paid promotion of false content.

The people most commonly affected by the digital violations that were monitored were journalists, medical professionals and people in quarantine.

Discriminatory posts and acts were directed mostly towards refugees, Chinese and Jewish people, women and the Roma community, with the largest number of such cases occurring in Hungary.

Gender-based discrimination was reported in Serbia, where the victims were predominantly politically-engaged individuals and journalists who criticise the government.

Threats and calls for violence against the police in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were found on Facebook. In both cases, authorities reacted promptly and perpetrators were identified and detained. In North Macedonia two police officers were fined for having taunted and offended people on social networks.

Violations related to damaging reputation predominantly affected governments’ political opponents, independent media and journalists.

Serbia was the country with the largest number of posts aimed at damaging the reputation of independent journalists. In three of four cases of publishing falsehoods, the journalists who were targeted were women.

Journalists were also targeted in North Macedonia and Hungary.

Pressure and arrests for publishing information


Infographic: BIRN 

Due to the highly controlled media landscape and poor level of media literacy in the countries that were monitored, the public was overwhelmed with contradictory information and had much more difficulty in recognising false and misleading information during the pandemic than usual. At the same time, the public’s need for timely and proper information had never been bigger.

While the flow of information continued to grow immensely, states started to arrest citizens for posts on social media over the accusation they caused panic and unrest. Some countries imposed authoritarian regulations that limited the flow of information.

Members of the public, media representatives and politicians were arrested and fined for their writings on social media, often without any clear criteria. Journalists were arrested in Serbia, Kosovo and Turkey.

Arrests and fines have become one of the main tactics to counter fake news and violations of restrictions imposed by all governments in the states that were monitored. In Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and North Macedonia, top state officials warned the public that they faced immediate sanctions for spreading fake news amid the pandemic.

From conspiracy theories to false measures


Illustration: BIRN 

Out of 163 cases, the largest number, 68, were linked with the misuse or manipulation of information. They mostly concerned different fake news, the use of false identities online, the sharing of conspiracy theories, or posts classified by the authorities as causing panic and disorder.

Some of the topics that were misused in this way included:

  • Medicines that can cure the coronavirus, vaccines and laboratory tests
  • Disinfection procedures
  • Tips and advices on how to cure the coronavirus
  • The number of infected people
  • Information about infected people
  • Information on medical institutions and their work
  • The start of the virus and how it developed
  • State measures and actions that have never been declared nor taken
  • Supermarkets and food shortages
  • 5G
  • Other conspiracy theories
  • Online education and information relevant for students
  • Offensive posts and videos about quarantined citizens and about people who arrived from a foreign country
  • Disturbing announcements about the COVID-19 outbreak

In some countries, such as Serbia and Hungary, levels of media freedom are low, with mainstream media often spreading disinformation, while independent media are called fabricators of lies by the authorities.

Nearly 25 per cent of all cases of the misuse or manipulation of information were resolved in some way. The outcomes included:

  • Website or content removal by the state
  • A request for the removal of the problematic post
  • Detention or arrest of a person
  • Official statement about the incident or a public apology

In Romania, most cases in this category ended in content removal. In Serbia, Hungary and Croatia, arrest was the most common outcome.

Manipulated information, conspiracy theories and unfounded claims emerged en masse on social media platforms and news website when most of the countries introduced emergency measures.

Disinformation was most intensively distributed via YouTube, where content blamed the expansion of 5G technology for the COVID-19 outbreak, or blamed multinational companies or foreign governments for the pandemic. In Croatia, one person even destroyed WiFi equipment, thinking it was 5G infrastructure. Mentions of the alleged influence of 5G networks on the pandemic was noted in Romania and Serbia, both on news websites and on social media.

News websites in Serbia, Romania, Hungary and Croatia often published manipulative content that included false information.

April was the month with the largest number of cases reported in this category. Some  30 out of the total 68 cases of manipulations in the digital environment were registered that month.

Information circulating in April and May, which was manipulated or false, mainly referred to the curfew, the number of COVID-19 patients and tests, students’ exams, people in quarantined, 5G transmitters, enforced microchipping and the funding of religious communities. In almost all cases from this category, members of the public were ones affected.

The rise of ‘unknown’ attackers


Illustration: BIRN

In comparison to the cases of online violations reported before the COVID-19 outbreak, BIRN’s monitoring noted a significant rise in cases in which the perpetrators cannot be identified. The number of these cases increased tenfold on a monthly basis.

These unknown perpetrators have been creating Facebook pages, using the virus situation to persecute independent journalists and others, send fraudulent messages in order to destroy computer software systems or steal money, and creating fake website accounts to spread conspiracy theories or medical disinformation.

Unknown perpetrators have also been responsible for computer frauds, the destruction and theft of data and for making content unavailable using technical skills. Hungary had the most cases involving unknown perpetrators, mainly related to computer fraud.

Cases have also shown how states can be violators of digital rights and freedoms. The increased number of cases which ended in arrest or detention revealed the tendency of states to use more power than was necessary, particularly to arrest journalists and citizens for posts on social media.

From having double standards when it comes to reactions to fake news to using their authority to silence people, governments often acted against the interests of their own citizens. According to the monitoring findings, in almost 25 per cent of all cases, the state itself or a state official was described as the perpetrator of a violation of certain guaranteed rights or freedoms.

On the other hand, members of the public were the victims of violations in 126 cases.

Media regulations across the region have been tightened under states of emergency and journalists have been arrested on accusation of spreading misinformation about authorities’ responses to the spread of the coronavirus. Some countries, like Serbia, sought to centralise the dissemination of official information and banned certain media from regular briefings.

The first worrying legal initiative was noted in Croatia, where the government proposed a change to the Electronic Communications Act under which, in extraordinary situations, the health minister would ask telecommunications companies to provide data on the locations of users’ terminals. The legislative change is currently pending.

In Hungary, the Bill on Protection Against Coronavirus, giving the government almost total control of the flow of information about the pandemic, was adopted at the end of March. The Hungarian government also decided to limit the application of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, and to extend the deadline for public institutions to provide data requested via freedom of information regulations from 15 to 45 days.

Romanian civil society organisations also drew attention to a lack of official transparency and the possibility of media freedoms being curbed by state-of-emergency provisions. Provisions enacted as part of the state of emergency to combat the spread of the coronavirus allowed the authorities to shut down websites that publish fake news and exempted the authorities from answering urgent inquiries from journalists. Access to a dozen websites has been blocked since then.

In North Macedonia, the media faced new procedures for the issue of work permits during coronavirus curfews. The government insisted that its pandemic measures would not affect the public’s right to information, but in practice, institutions were less responsive to freedom of information requests.

In general, there was a trend among many countries to suspend freedom of information requests.

Digital rights, and rights to privacy and freedom of expression on the internet have all faced serious limitations and breaches in South-East and Central Europe. In the semi-democracies of the region, dominated by regimes with elements of authoritarianism, there is legitimate concern about disproportionate interference in citizens’ personal data and concern that recently-imposed measures are not properly tailored to achieve their objectives while causing the least possible damage to guaranteed rights.

Many people’s lives during this period have completely shifted to the online world, where harmful behaviour usually remains unnoticed by authorities preoccupied by offline violations.

During BIRN’s monitoring period, the lack of a human rights-based approach towards people in the digital environment led to discrimination, hate speech and threats. Although protection of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms should be guaranteed on the internet in the same way as it is offline, in practice we have seen an increase in the number of cases of online violations. The forms that those violations take have been evolving as well.

A lack of knowledge and understanding of the online space, and the subsequent lack of internet governance have opened a Pandora’s Box, allowing various state institutions to arbitrarily, partially and unequally interpret people’s online behaviour.

The intense nature of the battle for control of the narrative about the coronavirus has made meaningful oversight of online life and practices, and establishing accountability for online actions, harder than ever.

To read the detailed overview of our digital rights monitoring click here. For individual cases, check our regional database, developed together with the SHARE Foundation.

Montenegro Court to Examine Publication of Self-Isolating Citizens’ Names

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Montenegro’s Constitutional court had agreed to examine whether the government violated the human rights of citizens ordered to self-isolate during the coronavirus by publishing their names.

On Friday it said it would consider the appeal brought by the local NGO Civil Alliance against the decision to publish the names of people undergoing self-isolation, which the alliance said violated their constitutional right to privacy.

“The court will examine whether the decisions of National Coordination Body for Infectious Diseases violated constitutional rights,” the court said. 

The government published the names on March 21, despite warnings from opposition parties and civic society organizations that it risked violating constitutionally guaranteed human rights.

The government said it had to publish the list because some citizen were not respecting self-isolation obligations. It also claimed it had the approval of the Agency for Personal Data Protection. It stressed that security forces could not control every citizen who should be in self-isolation, and anyone who failed to self-isolate posed a threat to the entire community.

Prime Minister Dusko Markovic said no compromises would be made with those who violated preventative measures amid the global COVID-19 pandemic. He also warned that the government would continue to publish the names of citizens who had been ordered to self-isolate.

“The lives of our citizens are the priority. We have estimated that the right to health and life is above the right to unconditional protection of personal data,” Markovic said.

Opposition parties and the civil society sector urged the government not to publish the lists, insisting it would violate the constitutional right to privacy. They also warned that citizens whose names were published might sue the state before the court.

The Head of the EU Delegation to Montenegro, Aivo Orav, called on the authorities to find the right balance between protecting the health and respecting the confidentiality of health information and the right to privacy of citizens.

On April 8, the Prosecutor’s Office filed criminal charges against a medical staffer in the Health Centre in the capital, Podgorica, after he published the list of names of infected people and their ID numbers on social networks.

It said that the man, known only by the initials M.R., was not unauthorized to collect and use personal information on COVID-19 patients through the IDO system and forward them via Viber to other persons.

North Macedonia Leads Region in COVID-19 Tracing App

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

North Macedonia has become the first country in the Western Balkans to launch a contact-tracing app to tackle the spread of COVID-19, with the government at pains to stress user data will be protected.

StopKorona! went live on April 13 as a Bluetooth-based smartphone app that warns users if they have come into contact with someone who has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, based on the distance between their mobile devices.

The app, downloaded more than 5,000 times on its first day, was developed and donated to the Macedonian authorities by Skopje-based software company Nextsense.

States are increasingly looking at digital solutions to control the spread of COVID-19 as they move to open up their economies while limiting the burden on their health services. The European Union and data protection campaigners, however, have voiced concern over the threat such technology poses to individual privacy.

Presenting the app, Health Minister Venko Filipce said North Macedonia was looking to use “all tools and possibilities” to combat a disease that, as of April 15, had killed 44 people.

Information Society Minister Damjan Manchevski said all data would be securely stored.

“This data is recorded on a secure server of the Ministry of Health,” Manchevski said at the launch. “And no other user has access to mobile numbers, nor is there any data stored about the owner of the number.”

If a person tests positive for COVID-19, they can “voluntarily” submit their data to the Ministry of Health, Manchevski said, enabling the app to warn other users if they come into contact with that person.

Data privacy concerns linger


Macedonian Minister of Health Venko Filipce accompanied by Prime Minister Oliver Spasovski in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/NAKE BATEV

China, Singapore, Israel and Russia are among a number of countries that have developed their own coronavirus mobile tracking apps, mainly using Bluetooth, GPS, cellular location tracking and QR codes. The Chinese government app colour codes citizens according to risk level.

The technology, however, has set alarm bells ringing among data protection campaigners and rights organisations concerned about the threat posed by mass surveillance and loosening of data protection laws.

Nextsense director Vasko Kronevski, however, said his firm’s StopKorona! app adhered to all legal requirements.

“This is a mobile app made by following best practices around the world in dealing with the coronavirus,” he said. “It guarantees the complete protection of users’ privacy.”

“The success will depend on the mass use of the application. It is important to emphasise that we used global experiences from different countries.”

One of those examples is Singapore’s TraceTogether app, which helped the Asian country successfully contain the COVID-19 outbreak within its borders while, unlike most countries, keeping businesses and schools open.

According to data privacy experts, the decentralized design of North Macedonia’s app guarantees that data will only be stored on those devices that run it, unless they voluntarily submit it to the ministry.

“The key part is that the citizen maintains full control over their data until the moment they decide to send it to the Ministry after being diagnosed,” said Danilo Krivokapic, director of the Serbia-based digital rights watchdog SHARE Foundation.

“Additionally, all data stored on the phone is being deleted after 14 days,” he told BIRN. “In that context, the app is in line with the legislation that covers Data Protection.”

Krivokapic stressed that once data is shared with the authorities, the Ministry and all data users are obliged to respect the legal framework regarding privacy and data protection.

EU countries warming up to digital solutions


People wearing face masks in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/GEORGI LICOVSKI

France and Germany are reported to be working on similar contact-tracing apps, while Poland has made the biggest progress within the EU.

Polish authorities have already launched a smartphone app for those in quarantine and are now working on another, similar to StopKorona!

The first app was mandatory for people in quarantine, meaning that they had to upload selfies so the authorities could track their exact location.

According to Krzysztof Izdebski, policy director at ePanstwo Foundation, a Poland-based NGO that promotes transparency and open data, the coronavirus pandemic has already posed significant threats to privacy, with governments deploying technologies primarily created for the surveillance of their citizens.

With the second app, the Bluetooth-based ProteGO, authorities have published the app’s source code online, to get feedback and opinions from IT experts before implementing it.

So ProteGO, said Izdebski, is an example of an app that is trying to meet privacy requirements.

“The data is stored on personal devices for up to two weeks, and only if the user is sick and agrees to share data with respective authorities, they are being sent to the server – without information on the location,” Izdebski told BIRN.

And while digital solutions such as these could become a game-changer in containing the outbreak, experts note that success still depends on how many people are willing to use them.

“For the technical solution to have some results, a substantial number of citizens need to run the apps and to decide to share their data in case they are diagnosed,” said SHARE Foundation’s Krivokapic. “This way, the app can serve its purpose.”

Montenegro Medic Arrested for Publishing List of Coronavirus Patients

Posted on by BIRD

Montenegro’s Prosecutor’s Office said the medical staffer in the Health Centre in the capital Podgorica, known only by the initials M.R., had been arrested by police for the crime of unauthorized collection and use of personal information.

“As an official, he is in charge of publishing information on COVID-19 patients through the IDO system, which he forwarded via Viber to other persons who, although his colleagues, are not authorized to dispose of this information,” the Prosecution said in a press release.

After the list of names of infected people and their ID numbers was published on Friday, the Montenegrin government demanded an investigation, which the Prosecutor’s Office led.

Civil society organizations and opposition parties also agreed that publishing the names of infected patients on social media violated their basic human rights and could lead to serious consequences. “We have to respect people’s privacy and stop the stigmatization of infected citizens,” the Civic Alliance, an NGO, said.

That was not the first time patients’ rights in Montenegro were violated in this way. On March 18, the identities of coronavirus patients were published by social media users and the photos of one patient and her family were also posted online.

On March 22, the government itself published the names of people who had been ordered to self-isolate, arguing that some of them had not respected the order.

The government said it had received the consent of the Agency for Personal Data Protection for this, and had decided that the lives and health of Montenegrin citizens came first. Despite concerns voiced by opposition parties and civil society groups, the government has continued to publish such lists.

There have been 248 confirmed novel coronavirus cases in the country of some 630,000 people so far, two of whom have died.

Concern for Rights in Montenegro amid COVID-19 Fight

Posted on by BIRD

Rights groups in Montenegro are warning of a threat to data privacy rights, free speech and media freedoms in the former Yugoslav republic under cover of the government’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Montenegro, a country of some 630,000 people, has at least 29 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus and one death. Since the outbreak, police have stepped up action against those accused of spreading false information and, ignoring the protests of opposition and rights organisations, published the names of people required to self-isolate due to the virus.

The country, which has been run by the same party for the past three decades, has a long record of restricting human rights and violating data privacy rights.

Activists fear the government will exploit the COVID-19 pandemic to clamp down further. The government says its overriding priority is to protect the lives and health of Montenegrin citizens.

“I am afraid that an attempt to deal with one danger could create another danger,” said Daliborka Uljarevic, executive director of the Podgorica-based Centre for Civic Education.ducation.

Dozens arrested

On March 13, a court imposed 30 days custody for a Montenegrin man who wrote on Facebook that state officials were concealing the true extent of the pandemic.

On March 22, another man was arrested on suspicion of falsely claiming that he had been infected.

The next day, police announced that 60 people had been charged with violating the restrictions imposed by the government to combat the spread of COVID-19, including those accused of spreading ‘fake news’ and others who opened restaurants after the government ordered them closed.

The same day, in the coastal town of Kotor, a Russian citizen was arrested after she wrote on Instagram that around 1,000 people had been infected by the virus in Montenegro and that six people had died of complications.

Authorities have used such tactics before, arresting two NGO activists in January over their Facebook posts during protests organised by the Serbian Orthodox Church against a controversial freedom of religion law. Three journalists were also detained on suspicion of causing panic and public disorder in their writing.

Concern over government respect for law

Uljarevic said the government had performed well so far in combating the virus, but that it should work more closely with all social and political actors.

“As a society we are facing a big problem and it requires the institutional mobilisation of a wider range of socio-political actors, especially when it comes to some moves that have an effect on different structures and can lead to the vulnerability of parts of society,” Uljarevic told BIRN.

Opposition Social Democratic Party, SDP, MP Rasko Konjevic said the government should make it stays within the law in dealing with the pandemic.

“This situation is extremely serious and it is important for the state to show its organisation and strength but not to forget the Constitution and laws,” he said. “It’s important that we are all equal before the law.”

Concern rose on March 22 when the government published the names of those people ordered to self-isolate, arguing that some had chosen not to respect the order.

The government said it had received the consent of the Agency for Personal Data Protection, and the the lives and health of Montenegrin citizens came first.

Opposition parties and civil society groups were outraged.

Further concerns have been raised over a number of economic decisions issued by the government without consulting parliament, despite provisions in the constitution that specify such decisions can only be taken by the government under a state of emergency. Montenegro has not declared a state of emergency.

Konjevic said the government should consult more widely. “They could share responsibility with others,” he said.

COVID-19: Dealing with Gaps in the Data

Posted on by BIRD

One of the major problems with the COVID-19 pandemic is the speed at which the contagion spreads. This makes treating infected people much more difficult to manage, but also severely hinders our ability to have an up-to-date, thorough and trustworthy picture of the situation in Europe and the rest of the world.

The information we rely on is approximate and often errs on the side of caution (for example, the number of infected people, or deaths caused by the pandemic). It’s important to be aware of these limitations, and approach the data with caution, even if this data is the best we have, given the present circumstances. Of all official data on the global situation, that produced by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) is considered among the most reliable. Nevertheless, new and more accurate studies are emerging every day, providing additional data to help understand the pandemic and its course of development.

How many are really infected?

We don’t know. What we do know is the number of confirmed infections – individuals testing positive for the virus – and highly approximate estimates of total infections.

The test for the virus involves taking a sample of saliva or mucus, which is then analysed for traces of the virus’ genetic code. The number of people being tested varies widely from country to country: depending, above all, on how well-equipped a country is to perform large-scale testing (often it’s not the kits that are lacking, but the personnel and laboratories required to analyse huge quantities of swabs). In certain countries, authorities decide to focus on people already showing symptoms associated with COVID-19, or even just those who are already hospitalised. We know, however, that many who have contracted the virus do not show any symptoms, or only start to show symptoms many days after being infected.

The percentage of infected people accounted for in the data varies widely from country to country. This makes it difficult to compare the development of the pandemic in different times and places. For example, Italy has performed around 3500 tests for every million inhabitants, compared to 6100 in South Korea, and 600 in Spain. According to an estimate attempted by the Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases, in the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Italy and Spain may have only recorded 5 percent of people actually infected. 

How many have really died?

This is also unknown, even if the number of deaths can be estimated with more precision than cases of infection.

What we do know is the number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 (unfortunately, the criteria for attribution are not yet internationally standardised). However, we cannot be sure that all deaths caused by the coronavirus have been recorded: in the most heavily hit areas of Italy, indications suggest that tests are not performed on all victims (many of those who die at home or in retirement homes, for example). Moreover, authoritarian regimes such as China and Iran may have an interest in publishing incomplete data in order to downplay the severity of the problem – thus the number of deaths caused by the pandemic may very well be higher than suggested by official counts.

How deadly is COVID-19?

No certainty here either. The relative danger of a disease can be measured by its case fatality rate – the number of deaths as a proportion of those infected – or the mortality rate, which measures the number of deaths as a proportion of the population. A case fatality rate of 4 percent indicates that for every 100 people infected the disease causes an average of four deaths.

The available estimates of COVID-19’s case fatality rate vary all too widely according to context. On the one hand, such variations could in fact be tied to local factors: for example, the disease is likely to have a greater impact in regions or countries where the population is older or more prone to respiratory illnesses, such as heavily polluted Northern Italy. Alternatively, such variations may only be apparent, and caused by differences in how data is collected. The case fatality rate compares two figures – deaths and infections – but, as we have seen, these figures are often recorded in different ways, and often contain significant gaps.

In any case, COVID-19’s case fatality rate is an order of magnitude greater than that of more mundane viral illnesses, such as seasonal flu. The latter typically causes the death of fewer than 0.1 percent of people infected, over many months, while it is estimated that COVID-19 causes an at least twenty or thirty times higher percentage of deaths, over just a few weeks. 

Two useful techniques for comparing data

Apart from the gaps and disparities in data collection, comparisons between regions and countries affected by the coronavirus are complicated by the fact that contagion didn’t start everywhere at the same time. Comparing Hubei province in China – where infection began around a month ago – with a country where contagion has just begun would not be particularly instructive. In order to compare such contexts, we should start with the day when the outbreak was registered in each area, and compare developments from there. For example, 15 days after the virus broke out in Italy, around 800 deaths had been recorded there, while in Spain, 15 days after the virus was detected in its territory, 2000 deaths had been recorded.

Another way to compare developments in countries with different data collection methods is to compare the rates of contagion in each country – for example, measuring the number of days it took for the number of confirmed deaths to double. In Germany, the figure doubled every two days, and in Italy every five days. In South Korea it has taken 13 days for the number of confirmed deaths to double, indicating that contagion has slowed down considerably.

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