The author of this article is the CEO of Singapore Starway Bank (DBS Bank)

On February 11, when the largest bank exhibition bank in Southeast Asia learned that the first new type of coronary virus pneumonia (COVID-19, 2019 coronary virus) cases appeared in the bank, we immediately took action.Less than an hour after learning that a employee of our Singapore headquarters was diagnosed as a new crown pneumonia was diagnosed, we evacuated employees from the entire floor and asked them to go home.

Even so, our employees are still anxious, which is understandable.At that time, the spread of new crown pneumonia in the world was still in the early stages, and it seemed that it was a rigid response way to prohibit all people from entering the office.

Soon, our data analysis and the artificial intelligence team opened a contact person tracking tool to investigate the recent trajectory of the infected employees.To this end, they use the following data sources: the card records, the door and the rotating door of the OFFICE 365 arrangement, the card recording of the rotating door, the conference room booking and the WiFi connection data.

This allows us to find 24 people who are classified as first -level contacts.We repeat this operation for all the 24 -bit contactors to create a list of secondary contacts and a list of three -level contactors.Everyone on the first two lists accepted two weeks of isolation, and the people on the third list were effectively monitored.This has become a standard solution and guides our actions when we respond to the next new coronary pneumonia.

We call the above system by calling the tree through the use of the user, and ask our employees to remember who they have previously met.Even when investigating first -level contacts, the accuracy of this method is much lower, and when we investigate the second and third -level contactors, it is even more inaccurate.

Getting so many personal information has a trace of Owaer, but I believe that rational use of data can allow us to quickly intervene, achieve positive medical and health effects, and may even save life.

Behind this, there is a little easy to see: Although the personal privacy has been fully recognized and protected, the larger subject MDASH; mdash; enterprise, society, the country, and even all human beings mdash; mdash; but the rights are often ignored.For greater interests, the authorities (in our incident refer to the company's management), and must exercise these rights.

Critics believe that granting power such as the authorities may lead to a system of supervision of totalitarianism.This view believes that by requiring citizens to self -report and voluntarily cooperate with data collection, it can also achieve the same effect without having to carry out centralized coordination and official initiative.

However, whether in Asia or in Western countries, the situation is not the case in the battle against the new crown epidemic.It is true that in the early stage of the epidemic, Singapore relied on targeted measures and public responsibility, so that the epidemic was well controlled.But unfortunately, we now find that waves of new, more difficult to control infections are appearing.Therefore, the city of this city has to take more severe actions and even maintain social distances to the law.Even so, we still see tens of thousands of people who did not comply with these requirements.It seems unrealistic to expect citizens to come up with the most positive intentions and efforts, without a central authorities to promote the agenda.

Similarly, at first, it was believed that the people of free and democratic countries would not be willing to accept the restrictions on the initial stage of the early stages of the epidemic of China.However, just a few weeks later, the police began to implement forced blockade on large land in the Western world.This leads to a question: If we can really rely on individual cooperation and human wishes to do the right thing, why do we still need a police officer?

During the period of major epidemic disease, it seems acceptable to relax our attitude towards data privacy.But can I get a lesson that is applicable in normal circumstances?I think it is true, because I firmly believe that our rights as the people are equally important as my own rights.We have used data mining technology to strengthen immigration control for terrorism, and strengthen the management measures to prevent money -laundering from understanding money laundering.

In addition, the fan of personal data privacy may find that this is a defeat.Today, we have seen that the number and types of personal data are exponentially growing.With the launch of the 5G network, our digital footprint will increase significantly, and the number traces of the number of actual behaviors to track the actual behavior through the Internet of Things will become easier.Today, the gate and the rotating door can provide information about personnel actual whereabouts without any notification or consent.Tomorrow, this will expand to almost every device we have contacted.

We are naturally anxious because of this major epidemic, but after the epidemic subsides, we also need to use data to deal with another disaster: climate change.Although many people are willing to share their personal carbon footprint data on the basis of voluntary, there will always be some people who refuse to cooperate with Mdash; MDash; they are often the culprits that lead to climate change.

Tracking carbon emissions data seems impossible nor necessary today.However, this new crisis that we have already visible is likely to prove once again that the necessity of collective operations is greater than personal data protection.

Translator/He Li