Viljoen, Ignatius M.Castelyn, Camille De VilleboisPope, A.Botes, M.Pepper, Michael Sean2021-08-192021-08-192020-07Viljoen, I.M., Castelyn, C. de V., Pope, A. et al. 2020, 'Contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic: Protection of personal information in South Africa', South African Journal of Bioethics and Law, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 15-20.1999-7639 (online)10.7196/SAJBL.2020.v13i1.718http://hdl.handle.net/2263/81378Containing the COVID-19 pandemic necessitates the use of personal information without the consent of the person. The protection of personal information is fundamental to the rights that ensure an open and democratic society. When regulations that limit the right to privacy are issued outside of the democratic process, every effort must be made to protect personal information and privacy. The limitation of human rights must be treated as an exception to the norm, and any regulations should be drafted to ensure minimum limitation of rights, rather than to the minimum acceptable standard. The contact tracing regulations included in the COVID-19 disaster regulations include some basic principles to ensure privacy; however, other important principles are not addressed. These include principles of transparency and data security. The envisaged future use of human data for research purposes, albeit de-identified, needs to be addressed by the COVID-19 designated judge appointed under the regulations.en© 2020 Health and Medical Publishing Group. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution licenseContact tracingProtection of personal informationCOVID-19 pandemicCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)South Africa (SA)Article