Just as air travel changed radically after 9/11 — citing national security and the “war on terror” as justifications — the world is now very different from what it was before COVID-19. Freedoms that were taken for granted in 2019 are abruptly revoked in 2020, again on national security and public health grounds.
But now, even with COVID-19 wiped out, the technology that was supposed to monitor and track the virus hasn’t gone away. Instead, they’re still being used and expanded around the world, suggesting that mass surveillance of the global population isn’t about COVID-19 after all, but something much bigger, threatening to wipe out freedom as we know it.
More than a year of Associated Press investigations have revealed a worrying trend around the world in the use of mass surveillance technology in the time of a pandemic as a means of control.
“During the dizzying early days of the pandemic, millions of people around the world believed the claims of government officials that they needed classified data to develop new technological tools to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. private health details, photos capturing their facial measurements and home addresses,” the Associated Press noted.1
Now, individuals are finding that data is being used against them — restricting travel and activism in law enforcement cases, and even sharing data with spy agencies. As John Scott-Railton of Internet watchdog Citizen Lab told the Associated Press, “Any intervention that increases the power of the state to monitor individuals has a long tail and is a ratchet system. Once you get that, it’s less likely Gone forever.”2
In China, citizens are required to install mobile phone apps that generate QR codes based on their health status. A green result based on PCR test results allows a person to move about freely, while a yellow or red result restricts travel or requires home quarantine. Following widespread demonstrations, the country said it would no longer enforce national-level health regulations to open up interprovincial travel.
