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Which governments have used anti-Covid apps to surveil their citizens? AP investigation

1 year ago babelfish

Which governments have used anti-Covid apps to surveil their citizens? AP investigation

In addition to China, other countries have also exploited Covid to invade the privacy of their citizens, exploding an industry of mass collection of biometric and biographical data that it is not known exactly where they will end up. All the details

Millions of people around the world during the first weeks of the pandemic shared their personal data as required by governments to counter the spread of the coronavirus. An Associated Press investigation, however, unmasked them and discovered that the police forces of several countries have used the technologies, passed off as Covid monitoring, in reality to increase surveillance.

WHAT WAS THE DATA COLLECTION FOR

From Beijing to Jerusalem, from Hyderabad, India to Perth, Australia, the Associated Press found that authorities have used this technology and data “to block travel by activists and ordinary people, to harass marginalized communities and to link people's health information to other surveillance and law enforcement tools. In some cases, the data was shared with spy agencies."

THE “SUPERVISORS” OF CHINA

In China, where one of the tracking apps that citizens were required to download and in which they had to register their data was recently deactivated , it was requested to install others anyway which, by producing QR codes, allow access or not to certain places.

But in addition to the apps, the news agency also tells of figures such as "supervisors", people usually hired by the state security for the "maintenance of stability". Such workers may request citizens to meet or travel when authorities fear they might cause trouble. A single signal from them is enough to turn the QR code red and they prevent a person from moving.

Whether it's a protest or denunciation of any kind, a code prevents dissent and censors people.

Among the testimonies collected are that of the former wealth manager Yang Jiahao who was prevented from traveling to Beijing where he wanted to present various complaints to the central government, or that of a group of bank customers who were forbidden to go to complain because they could not access their online accounts. One of them, who managed to get to the city of the bank, saw its code red become and was quarantined in a basement. On that occasion, the same fate befell 1,317 people, all with the idea of ​​protesting.

“It is the governance model, whose philosophy is to strengthen social control through technology,” said Yaqiu Wang, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.

THE SHIN BET OF ISRAEL

In Jerusalem, in May 2021, residents had become accustomed to the police appearing in front of their homes to call them back in case they were not observing the quarantine, and they knew that the Israeli security agency Shin Bet was reusing the telephone surveillance technology it had previously used to track militants inside the Palestinian territories.

But a year later, AP reports , “The Shin Bet began using the same technology to send threatening messages to Arab citizens and residents of Israel whom the agency suspected of engaging in violent clashes with the police. Some of the recipients, however, simply lived or worked in the area, or were passersby."

“It's like the government is in your bag. When you move, the government is with you with this phone,” a witness said.

Throughout the city, CCTV cameras and what the authorities have described as "advanced technologies" are added to this surveillance tool, which monitor everyone.

THE FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGIES OF INDIA

In India, however, monitoring the Covid was the perfect excuse to expand their digital arsenals. Facial recognition and artificial intelligence technology, AP says, exploded after Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 and became a tool for police to monitor mass gatherings.

In Hyderabad, for example, the police began photographing people who weren't wearing masks or were simply wearing them wrong. A police commissioner told the AP that in recent years "the city has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the purchase of patrol vehicles, CCTV, facial recognition and geo-tracking applications, and several hundred facial recognition cameras, as well as other technologies based on algorithms or machine learning”.

India, by the way, is trying to build what will be one of the world's largest facial recognition networks and has no data protection law. “Today surveillance is being proposed as a technological panacea to major social problems in India, which has brought us much closer to China. There is no law. There are no guarantees. And this is a widespread use of mass surveillance,” said Apar Gupta, executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation in New Delhi.

AUSTRALIAN INTELLIGENCE WITH HANDS IN THE SACK

But even Australia has its skeletons in the closet. “Australian intelligence agencies – says AP – were caught 'accidentally' collecting data from the national app COVIDSafe”, now deactivated. Despite reassurances from the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security, who stated that there is no evidence that the data has been decrypted, accessed or used, there is no certainty even as to what will happen to the collected data.

According to the investigation, meanwhile, they were used to investigate crimes.

US INVESTMENTS IN DATA MINING AND SURVEILLANCE

The United States, per AP , used the moment to “boost its surveillance toolkit, including two contracts in 2020 worth $24.9 million to data mining and surveillance firm Palantir Technologies Inc. for support the country's Department of Health and Human Services pandemic response."

But for the news agency, the goals contemplated by the authorities went much further. Among the possibilities are "the integration of 'patient identifiable data', such as information on mental health, substance use and behavioral health from group homes, shelters, prisons, rehab facilities and schools."

“What Covid has done is accelerate the state's use of these tools and data and normalize them, so they fit the narrative of a public benefit,” said John Scott-Railton, a researcher at the Citizen Lab. “Now the question is: will we be able to come to terms with the use of this data or is this the new normal?”.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/quali-governi-hanno-usato-le-app-anti-covid-per-sorvegliare-i-propri-cittadini-linchiesta-di-ap/ on Wed, 21 Dec 2022 14:33:57 +0000.