Coronavirus and surveillance technology: How far will governments go?

Post origi­nal en global voices

The follo­wing post writ­ten by Shui-yin Sharon Yam, Assis­tant Profes­sor of Writing, Rheto­ric, and Digi­tal Studies at the Univer­sity of Kentucky, was origi­nally publis­hed on Hong Kong Free Press on 24 March 2020 and repu­blis­hed here on Global Voices under a content part­ners­hip agre­e­ment. 

Check out Global Voices’ special cove­rage of the global impact of COVID-19.

Since the COVID 19 outbreak became a fast-spre­a­ding pande­mic, govern­ments from across the globe have imple­men­ted new poli­cies to help slow the spread of the virus.

In addi­tion to closing borders to non-citi­zens, many govern­ments have also mobi­li­zed digi­tal survei­llance tech­no­lo­gies to track and contain visi­tors and citi­zens alike.

On Wednes­day, the Hong Kong govern­ment announ­ced that all new arri­vals to the city must undergo two weeks of self-quaran­tine, while wearing an elec­tro­nic wrist­band that connects to a loca­tion trac­king app on their phones.

If the app detects chan­ges in the person’s loca­tion, it will alert the Depart­ment of Health and the police. Prior to this new policy, only people who had recently visi­ted Hubei province in China were requi­red to wear a moni­to­ring wrist­band during their quaran­tine period.

While survei­llance tech­no­lo­gies and measu­res may give the public a sense of secu­rity in contro­lling the spread of the virus, we must remain mind­ful and vigi­lant of their conti­nued use after the pande­mic subsi­des.

Euro­pean and North Ameri­can coun­tries like Italy, Spain, and the US are currently being hit hard by the coro­na­vi­rus. Meanw­hile, Asian coun­tries have been prai­sed by inter­na­ti­o­nal media for their swift respon­ses and use of survei­llance tech­no­lo­gies to control the outbreak.

The Singa­po­rean govern­ment, for exam­ple, imple­men­ted poli­cies that can effec­ti­vely and rigo­rously trace a complex chain of contacts. As of Febru­ary, anyone ente­ring a govern­ment or corpo­rate buil­ding in Singa­pore will have to provide their contact infor­ma­tion.

In addi­tion, the govern­ment has been gathe­ring a subs­tan­tial amount of data detai­ling not only each known case of infec­tion but also where the person lives, works and the network of contacts they are connec­ted to.

While these measu­res have thus far seemed to yield posi­tive results, they have high­ligh­ted the tech­no­lo­gi­cal capa­city and power of the govern­ment to moni­tor the move­ments and lives of every indi­vi­dual.

In China, where Covid-19 was first detec­ted, the govern­ment has been deploying not only dras­tic lock­down poli­cies but also a vari­ety of survei­llance tech­no­lo­gies to ensure public compli­ance with self-quaran­tine and isola­tion.

In addi­tion to using drones to moni­tor people’s move­ments and ensure they are staying home, police in five Chinese cities have taken to patro­lling the stre­ets wearing smart helmets equip­ped with ther­mal scre­e­ning tech­no­lo­gies that sound an alarm if a person’s tempe­ra­ture is higher than the thres­hold.

The govern­ment has also colla­bo­ra­ted with the company Hanwang Tech­no­logy Limi­ted to finesse their exis­ting facial recog­ni­tion tech­no­logy, so that it can work even when the person is wearing a face mask.

When connec­ted to a tempe­ra­ture sensor and the Chinese govern­ment’s exis­ting data­base as well as state-level intel, this tech­no­logy allows autho­ri­ties to imme­di­a­tely iden­tify the name of each person whose body tempe­ra­ture is above 38 degrees Celcius.

Accor­ding to Hanwang Tech­no­logy, this refi­ned facial recog­ni­tion tech­no­logy can iden­tify up to 30 people “within a second.”

While the use of survei­llance tech­no­lo­gies like these has been effec­tive in lowe­ring the number of confir­med cases in China, it is not without risks.

Beyond the pande­mic, both the Chinese govern­ment and the company have subs­tan­tial inter­ests in further deve­lo­ping and deploying this tech­no­logy: the govern­ment can make use of it to track and suppress poli­ti­cal dissi­dents, and the company has much to gain finan­ci­ally.

This tech­no­logy can also be co-opted by China’s coun­ter­ter­ro­rism forces to further moni­tor and regu­late the move­ment of the Uighur people, who are cate­go­ri­sed as terro­rists by the Chinese govern­ment and are currently being forced into mass deten­tion camps and subjec­ted to forced labour.

Outside of Asia, Middle Eastern coun­tries like Israel and Iran have also been deploying simi­lar survei­llance tech­no­lo­gies, citing the need to control the spread of the coro­na­vi­rus.

The Isra­eli govern­ment now makes use of tech­no­lo­gies deve­lo­ped for coun­ter­ter­ro­rism to collect cellp­hone data, so that the govern­ment can trace people’s contact network, and iden­tify those who need to be quaran­ti­ned.

The geolo­ca­tion data gathe­red via people’s phones will then be used to alert the public where not to go based on the pattern of infec­tion.

Not only is it unpre­ce­den­ted for Israel to deploy coun­ter­ter­ro­rism data to combat a public health crisis, but the exis­tence of this data trove has also, accor­ding to the New York Times, not been repor­ted prior to this.

On March 6, rese­ar­cher Nari­man Gharib reve­a­led that the Iranian govern­ment had been trac­king its citi­zens’ phone data through an app disgui­sed as a coro­na­vi­rus diag­nos­tic tool.

Secu­rity expert Niko­laos Chry­sai­dos confir­med that the app collec­ted sensi­tive perso­nal infor­ma­tion unre­la­ted to the outbreak – for exam­ple, the app recor­ded the bodily move­ments of the user the way a fitness trac­ker would.

Google has since remo­ved the app from Google Play, but this case demons­tra­tes the need for ongoing public vigi­lance over govern­ment use of survei­llance tech­no­lo­gies in the name of public health.

Safe­guar­ding public health has histo­ri­cally been used as a justi­fi­ca­tion for mains­tream insti­tu­ti­ons and govern­ment autho­ri­ties to stig­ma­tise, moni­tor, and regu­late the lives of margi­na­li­sed people – such as immi­grants, racial mino­ri­ties, LGBTQ+ people, and people living in poverty.

If we do not hold our govern­ment accoun­ta­ble for its use of survei­llance tech­no­lo­gies during the current pande­mic and beyond, we will be putting those who are alre­ady margi­na­li­sed at further risks of regu­la­tion, suppres­sion, and perse­cu­tion.