On January 13, the McGill Research Group on Health and Law (MRGHL) hosted an interdisciplinary panel to reflect upon the delicate balance of individual privacy and public health. Panellists Dr. Anne Andermann, public health physician and member of the McGill Department of Family Medicine; Faculty of Law Assistant Professor Ignacio Cofone; and Khaled El Emam, University of Ottawa professor and founder of multiple data privacy and analytics companies; each offered a perspective from their respective field of study. According to the MRGHL, the panel aimed to address privacy concerns regarding contact tracing apps, specifically Canada’s “COVID Alert,” within a framework of the virus as a syndemic – not a pandemic, widespread over an entire population, but a crisis which more strongly impacts certain groups due to biological, social, and economic factors. Just as COVID-19 continues to disproportionately affect the elderly, racialized people, people with disabilities, those who are