As the coronavirus spreads across the world, surveillance measures have increased. A large number of leaders are asserting stricter control, declaring themselves “at war” with an invisible enemy or attacker. But as leaders go to war, the door opens to more invasive forms of surveillance as people relinquish their privacy rights.

Even countries regarded at the world’s most liberal democracies have enforced quarantine measures which a mere few weeks ago would have been considered unthinkable. We all want to feel safe, but where do we draw the line between governments protecting our health and safety, and protecting our right to personal privacy?

WHAT MEASURES HAVE BEEN TAKEN?

In Mainland China, the government imposed heavy measures on its population as the crisis developed. Government-installed CCTV cameras point at the apartment doors of those under a 14-day quarantine to ensure that they do not leave. Digital barcodes on apps highlight the health status of individuals - red, yellow, or green - indicating contagion risk. Furthermore, people are now experiencing drones telling them to wear face masks.

In Hong Kong, residents were made to wear wristbands that link to a smartphone app and alert authorities if a person leaves their quarantine. In Poland, Kenya, and Singapore, apps with very accurate sensors to enforce social distancing have been deployed.

Italian citizens are located by cellphone data ensure that they are obeying lockdown orders. Additionally, Russian police stated that it had already caught 200 individuals who have violated quarantine restrictions via facial recognition-enabled cameras.

South Korea, Singapore, and Israel are combining location data, video camera footage, and credit card information to track people who tested positive of COVID-19 in their countries. South Korea has also begun to publish detailed location history from people who tested positive for the coronavirus, which has led to public shaming. 

WHAT IS SO HARMFUL ABOUT THESE MEASURES?          

“We could easily end up in a situation where we empower local, state or federal government to take measures in response to this pandemic that fundamentally change the scope of American civil rights” said an executive director of a non-profit organisation on surveillance.

These surveillance tools can be highly ineffective. Examples include the public shaming of doctors who worked without knowing they were infected, or the publishing of location histories of people with the virus.  These instances caused a stir of chaos instead of calm. In South Korea, the hounding and tracing of individuals who tested positive for the virus caused people to defer from getting tested for the infection since they did not want to risk their privacy.

More importantly, however, is that most of these measures intrude extensively on personal privacy. The biggest concern is that there is little clarity about the length of time that these extraordinary surveillance measures will be in place. Institutionalising these systems might make the general public become more accepting of more intrusive measures.

The speed at which the pandemic continues to take lives is prompting governments to put in place urgent (often political) measures, with little international coordination, without considering their effects or appropriateness. Expanding surveillance often leads to an unwillingness to retract them once the immediate threat is gone - a lesson Americans learned after 9/11. Almost two decades later, law enforcement agencies have access to extremely high-powered surveillance systems, including facial recognition and fine-grained location tracking technologies. As Joseph Cannataci, the UN special rapporteur on the right to privacy, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation; “dictatorships and authoritarian societies often start in the face of a threat.”.

WHAT IS THE WAY FORWARD?

Just as the civil liberties erosion as a result of the war on terror was avoidable, such erosion can and should be avoided this time. This can be done through limits and justifications every step of the way, according to data experts and civil liberty advocates.

Powerful measures must have clear time limits, policies and decisions should be implemented because of a rise in demand from the public, and personal data which is collected should be used for pandemic-purposes only. Furthermore, the policies must be effective and significantly address the crisis. We must think one step ahead at this critical point and ask ourselves if the benefit of surveillance outweigh the costs of privacy, free speech, and equal opportunity.

Isabella is Masters student of human rights at Uppsala University in Sweden. She focuses on women’s rights, as well as humanitarian and conflict studies.

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