Current Trends in the Implementation of E-Governance Elements in the Field of Public Health under the Threat of a Global Pandemic

Abstract

The worldwide spread of COVID-19 has led to the emergence of a number of useful electronic tools in the field of public healthcare. This aspect is relevant for study. Estonian experts are the first to rethink e-governance strategies in a pandemic. They offer to store public health data on remote corporate servers and to collect patient’s personal information using Blockchain technology. Modern technologies use drones, recordings of video cameras of street surveillance, connection to Wi-Fi networks to track citizens in quarantine conditions. One of the most effective tools for monitoring in the field of public health was electronic applications for smart phones. Electronic tools are relevant in the field of public health both at the regional level and in urbanized territories. Asian countries systematically implement such tools with the support and consent of the local population. And in Europe, governments are trying to protect the democratic freedoms of citizens and use the impersonal data of mobile operators to record mass gatherings of people on electronic maps. The Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine has launched a mobile application ‘Diy Vdoma’ (‘Action at Home’) since the beginning of April 2020 to monitor the quarantine regime of observation and self-isolation. Consequently, the use of electronic tools in the field of public healthcare, especially during the global pandemic, gives state and regional authorities the opportunity to control the situation. However, the issue of the balance between the observance of public sanitary and epidemiological security and the preservation of democratic human rights and freedoms is remained. The practice of using e-governance tools is opens up an additional aspect for researchers to study There is an additional aspect to study, i.e. reliable and timely information about emergencies posted on government platforms on the Internet allows public and human rights organizations to control the activities of public authorities in crisis situations effectively and to prevent violations of individual rights and freedoms, to monitor the use of budget funds during a pandemic and to assess the quality of their functions by the state.