Regulating Digital and AI Technologies:
Lorna McGregor · Yearbook of international disaster law online · 2022
International human rights law, international disaster law, and the International Health Regulations all require states to act with due diligence to prevent, mitigate, and remedy specific harms generated by global health pandemics, including grave threats to life and health.1However, each body of law only provides partial direction on the nature of the measures states are expected to adopt.In common with the wider shift within the public sector to "digital", "algorithmic" or "ai" government,2 the question arises whether digital technologies form part of the measures expected -or even required of -states in a global health pandemic.No common definition of digital technologies exists but technologies often arranged under this heading include smart technologies, the Internet of Things, blockchain, and artificial intelligence (ai) technologies.3'AI' similarly does not denote a particular technology but also acts as an umbrella term to group a range of new and emerging technologies.4The draft EU Artificial Intelligence Act defines an ai system as 'software that is developed with one or more of the techniques and approaches listed in Annex i [such as 'machine learning approaches'; 'logic and knowledge-based approaches'; '[s]tatistical * Professor of International Human Rights Law and PI, ESRC Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project, University of Essex.** This work