Wastewater-based epidemiology (or wastewater surveillance) has grown in popularity following its widespread use for monitoring and governing the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, concerns about its potential to infringe on privacy rights have been raised. While individual privacy rights are important, this framing of ethics often misses out on identifying and addressing the structural inequalities and injustices that shape community-level surveillance efforts conducted by governments and private companies.
Emerging technologies can either be assimilated into the status quo or revolutionize how we learn and govern. We believe teams of interdisciplinary experts must be formed in order to build a wastewater surveillance practice that revolutionizes the field – both technically and ethically. Our workshop is meant as a first step towards this goal.