The expansion of mass surveillance to stop coronavirus should worry us all | Veena Dubal
No matter how much we want to return to 'normal', we must be wary of additional for-profit use of our data
Hunkered down in our homes for weeks on end, we long to be free. We nostalgically imagine our lives before the pandemic - recalling what it was like to live in a social world: to dine with friends at a neighborhood restaurant, to visit our elderly parents. Those of us lucky enough - so far - to be personally untouched by death and suffering are inevitably wondering: when can we stop living in fear? What can we do to end this physical isolation?
To this end, technology companies have put on their "kind capitalism" hats and launched into fix-it mode. Some are producing - and profiting handsomely from - masks and ventilators, while others are expanding our existing surveillance economies in the name of "public health". Data-gathering and for-profit tracing technologies are becoming the pre-eminent solution to save lives and to liberate us from the confinement of physical isolation. The only catch, the techno-capitalists tell us, is that we have to trust them and change our privacy expectations.
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