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Very similar to air journey was basically modified post-9/11 — justified by nationwide safety and the “battle on terror” — the world is now profoundly completely different than its pre-COVID-19 state. Freedoms taken without any consideration in 2019 had been abruptly taken away in 2020, once more justified by nationwide safety and public well being.
However now, even with COVID-19 neutralized, applied sciences supposedly put in place to observe and observe the virus haven’t gone away. Quite the opposite, they’re nonetheless getting used and expanded all through the world, revealing that mass monitoring of the worldwide inhabitants wasn’t about COVID-19 in any case however one thing a lot greater, with the potential to get rid of freedom as we all know it.
A year-plus investigation by The Related Press reveals a regarding development worldwide by which pandemic-era mass surveillance applied sciences are being utilized as devices of management.
“Within the pandemic’s bewildering early days, tens of millions worldwide believed authorities officers who stated they wanted confidential information for brand spanking new tech instruments that might assist cease coronavirus’ unfold. In return, governments received a firehose of people’ personal well being particulars, pictures that captured their facial measurements and their house addresses,” AP famous.1
Now people are discovering that information is getting used towards them — proscribing journey and activism, in regulation enforcement instances and even being shared with spy companies. As John Scott-Railton with web watchdog Citizen Lab instructed AP, “Any intervention that will increase state energy to observe people has a protracted tail and is a ratcheting system. When you get it, may be very unlikely it can ever go away.”2
In China, residents had been required to put in cellphone apps that produce QR codes relying on well being standing. A inexperienced end result, based mostly on PCR take a look at outcomes, permits an individual to maneuver about freely whereas a yellow or crimson end result restricted journey or required house confinement. Following widespread demonstrations, the nation acknowledged it could now not implement national-level well being codes to open up journey between provinces.
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