personal data.27 28 Data protection laws recognise such situations, but more importantly as Botswana law states any other person who is not a health professional collecting sensitive personal data must carry out those directions under the supervision of a health professional and a person who is directly authorised to perform such functions.29 Many countries however subordinate these issues, when faced with public health crises but the balancing of rights is non-negotiable.30 The public health interests limit the individual's decisional and informational privacy, as these rights become subservient to public welfare interests.31 To contain the spread of COVID-19, collection of sensitive personal data in form of health information increased, with the adoption of mobile applications, and contact notification procedures. According to International Centre for Not-forProfit Law (ICNL), over 62 laws were adopted globally that violated the right to privacy through data collection, and Zimbabwe, South Africa, and other public health standard measures (PHSMs) requiring temperature readings and recording of personal mobile numbers for contact tracing, this information if cross-referenced with the mobile subscriber databases in most countries it, easily discloses health-related data.32 4.2.1 COVID Surveillance Infrastructure case of Zimbabwe The COVID-19 pandemic had the most technologically advanced responses in human history and collected corpus amounts of personal data.33 Countries adopted systematic and ongoing collection, collation, and analysis of sensitive personal data. The technology enabled surveillance assumed a positive societal value bringing efficiency and effective responses to the pandemic. However, there are significant concerns. The scale of surveillance and data collection was concerning as massive health-related data was processed in NewsDay Military nurses take over hospitals https://www.newsday.co.zw/ Article / /military nurses take over hospitals/ last accessed of General Data Protection Regulation processing of health data for medical purposes under art April h must be done by a professional who is bound by professional confidentiality. Botswana Data Protection Act section . Makwaiba BS Tension between the individual s fundamental human rights and the protection of the public from infectious and formidable epidemic diseases AHRLJ . Makwaiba Section of Statutory Instrument of Postal and Telecommunications Subscriber Registration Regulations, . The Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority POTRAZ , established under Postal and Telecommunications Act PTA mandated compulsory registration of subscriber identity module SIM and establishing of a database. O Saki A health pandemic not a data pandemic: an analysis of Zimbabwe s data protection framework in response to COVID unpublished paper . PAGE