Covid-19 Information Protection: Between Information Privacy, Health Secrecy and Public Safety

Abstract

To contribute meaningfully to the fight against disease outbreaks, the media should not just funnel predetermined health news to the audience. It should also play the vital role of convincing citizens to protect themselves and to shun rumors, misinformation and conspiracy theories that disfigure reality about infectious diseases. The present study examines alleged Covid-19 information concealment in Nigeria, which is thought to account for citizen uncooperativeness in the fight against the disease. It highlights the distinctions between data privacy and information secrecy. Using Spearman’s rank correlation, Chi-square and linear regression, we analyzed data from 183 statistically selected respondents from two states and the Federal Capital Territory in Nigeria. Data were also generated from qualitative survey of 12 health editors, two public affairs analysts and two government officials. Results indicate negative relationships between compliance with Covid-19 containment measures, citizen opinions on Covid-19 information protection and opinions on Covid-19 controversies. Data from qualitative survey suggest that government’s protection of information forces editors to report stories without “human face.” The study highlights the need for distinctions between physical privacy, information privacy and related concepts in the enforcement of health information privacy. This is to avoid sacrificing the public’s right to know in the guise of health information protection.

Keywords:

• secrecy
• Covid-19
• health
• privacy
• disease

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT

When infectious diseases break out, major information sources must be transparent to convince people to obey health instructions. The study looks at issues about the hiding of important Covid-19 information, which made some people to think that Covid-19 was not real. We asked 183 people in Lagos, Enugu and Abuja what they think about the accusations that government and the media concealed important information about Covid-19. We also asked them how they obeyed health instructions and what they think about some arguments surrounding Covid-19. We asked health editors and social commentators about government’s information protection. We found out that people obeyed the instructions, although they doubted some information because government and the media were not transparent. The editors said they were not allowed to get the kinds of information they wanted. We recommended that government should not endanger society because it wants to protect those who have Covid-19.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no direct funding for this research.

Notes on contributors

Michael O. Ukonu

The present study is undertaken by Michael O. Ukonu, Edith U. Ohaja and others, all senior academics at the department of mass communication, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The authors’ research interests are in health communication and media analysis, with over 25 published journal articles. The study is one of the three done by the present group to address the communication questions posed by the Covid-19 health information system in Nigeria. Having looked at the predictors of compliance to Covid-19 protocols, and a content analysis of newspaper coverage of Covid-19, we saw a gap in the area of the contexts of media coverage of the pandemic. In light of government’s role as a major Covid-19 information broker, we noticed some dire implications to the gatekeeping role of the media. We attempted to show the necessary demarcations between information protection and information secrecy vis á vis media role during health emergencies.