Dr. Alain B. Labrique is an infectious disease epidemiologist and associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.

The recent announcement that Google and Apple are jointly developing an app that could alert you if you have been in contact with someone infected with coronavirus is a prime example of the tensions involved in using digital tools to fight this pandemic. The voluntary participation that is a cornerstone of the companies' privacy policy means the app may struggle to get a sufficient user base and, as a result, may not have much of an impact.

But it's urgent that we find a way to strike a balance when it comes to using digital technologies to manage this threat to our health and economy. The United States is moving toward an inflection point in the pandemic where we need a realistic road map for getting America back on its feet without sparking a second surge in infections. The data generated by mobile phones can play an incredibly valuable role by providing insights that can allow public health and economic imperatives to work in sync, rather than in opposition to one another.

Countries like Israel, Thailand and Hong Kong already are effectively using data generated by smartphones to fight COVID-19. In Singapore, the government released an app that uses Bluetooth to identify people who have been in close contact with a COVID-19 patient. South Korea has used cell phone data to create maps showing where infected people went even before they were diagnosed. The public health implications of such data insights are remarkable.

But significant privacy concerns have accompanied these moves to compile medical and location data. They are likely to be especially prominent around any effort to use digital tools to fight the pandemic in the United States. We're a country that has long emphasized the importance of autonomy and individual freedom. There has always been a tension between civil liberties and public health interventions, especially during crises when the suspension of freedoms is for the greater good.

Here are a few ways we can take advantage of digital technologies while balancing public health imperatives with privacy concerns.

Read More