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dr tech

Still flattening the curve?: Increased risk of digital authoritarianism after... - 0 views

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    "The main rationale for increasing state surveillance was to tackle the pandemic effectively to save people's lives. Yet, states are not enthusiastic about abandoning these digital tools, even though the pandemic is winding down. Instead, they are determined to preserve their surveillance capacities under the pretext of national security or preparation for future pandemics. In the face of increasing state surveillance, however, we should thoroughly discuss the risk of digital authoritarianism and the possible use of surveillance technologies to violate privacy, silence political opposition, and oppress minorities. For example, South Korea's sophisticated contact tracing technology that involves surveillance camera footage, cell-phone location data, and credit card purchases has disclosed patients' personal information, such as nationality. It raised privacy concerns, particularly for ethnic minorities, and underlined the risk of technology-enabled ethnic mapping and discrimination."
yeehaw

Israel's Virus Surveillance Tool Tests Its Democratic Norms | Voice of America - English - 0 views

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    "In the early days of the pandemic, a panicked Israel began using a mass surveillance tool on its civilians, tracking people's cellphones in hopes of stopping the spread of the coronavirus."
dr tech

Working From Home? Zoom Tells Your Boss If You're Not Paying Attention - 1 views

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    "During the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of Americans will be forced to work, play, and learn from home for the foreseeable future. Such a massive shift will lean not only on shaky and expensive U.S. broadband networks, but popular teleconferencing programs that often don't quite work as advertised. Zoom in particular has seen a flood of new users, and the company's stock has jumped roughly 20 percent since the COVID-19 outbreak began. But as new users flock to the platform for work, they should be aware of a few things: namely, the company's data collection, its shaky privacy policy, and the fact your boss knows when you're not giving them your undivided attention."
dr tech

Shirking from home? Staff feel the heat as bosses ramp up remote surveillance | Surveil... - 0 views

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    "Earlier this year, the consultancy PwC came under fire for developing a facial recognition tool that logs when employees are away from their computer screens while working from home."
dr tech

Edward Snowden warns 'bio-surveillance' may outlast coronavirus - Big Think - 0 views

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    "These new tracking measures may someday be repurposed to advance governments' mass surveillance programs, Snowden warned"
dr tech

Singapore looks to ease privacy fears with 'no internet' wearable device | ZDNet - 0 views

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    "The Singapore government says the wearable device it is developing for COVID-19 contact tracing will not have GPS, internet, or cellular connectivity, so data it collects can only be extracted when it is physically handed over to a health official. These details are being offered up as the government looks to ease concerns about data privacy and drive the adoption of digital tools that can help speed up contact tracing. "
dr tech

How a global health crisis turns into a state-run surveillance opportunity | John Naugh... - 0 views

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    "But an analysis of the app's code found that it does more than decide in real time whether someone poses a contagion risk; it also shares information with the police, setting "a template for new forms of automated social control that could persist long after the epidemic subsides"."
dr tech

'The new normal': China's excessive coronavirus public monitoring could be here to stay... - 0 views

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    "Others are more emphatic about the future. Wang Aizhong, an activist based in Guangzhou, said: "This epidemic undoubtedly provides more reason for the government to surveil the public. I don't think authorities will rule out keeping this up after the outbreak.""
dr tech

We Mapped How the Coronavirus Is Driving New Surveillance Programs Around the World - 0 views

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    "an attempt to stem the tide of the coronavirus pandemic, at least 30 governments around the world have instituted temporary or indefinite efforts to single out infected individuals or maintain quarantines. Many of these efforts, in turn, undermine personal privacy."
dr tech

Your Boss Is Watching You: Work-From-Home Boom Leads To More Surveillance : NPR - 0 views

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    "Company emails that she provided to NPR show her employer believed the tracking software would improve the team's productivity and efficiency while everyone was working from home."
dr tech

Hong Kong set to implement a China-style health code and contact-tracing app ... - 0 views

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    "However, the new government under the newly inaugurated Chief Executive John Lee is changing these policies and requiring real-name registration in the app, which some are concerned may pose a privacy threat. The city will also adopt a health code system similar to the one used in mainland China in a bid to curb the latest COVID spike."
yeehaw

CNA - On using TraceTogether data for criminal investigations: "I had not thought of th... - 0 views

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    "Vivian Balakrishnan on why he had earlier said that TraceTogether app data would only be used for COVID-19 contact tracing. The Home Affairs Ministry has since said the data could be used for criminal investigations."
dr tech

Mandatory Student Spyware Is Creating a Perfect Storm of Human Rights Abuses | Electron... - 0 views

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    "Spyware apps were foisted on students at the height of the Covid-19 lockdowns. Today, long after most students have returned to in-person learning, those apps are still proliferating, and enabling an ever-expanding range of human rights abuses. In a recent Center for Democracy and Technology report, 81 percent of teachers said their schools use some form of this "student monitoring" spyware. Yet many of the spyware companies supplying these apps seem neither prepared nor concerned about the harms they are inflicting on students. "
dr tech

Will the Pandemic Usher in an Era of Mass Surveillance in Higher Education? - The Chron... - 0 views

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    "As colleges come under unprecedented pressure to downsize, from the pandemic as well as the steep enrollment decline that was already projected for 2025, some professors predict that the shift online might reinforce "corporate university" tendencies to track professors' productivity and use the results as an excuse to lay them off."
dr tech

Coronavirus: Singapore develops smartphone app for efficient contact tracing, Singapore... - 0 views

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    "Dubbed TraceTogether, the app is able to identify people who have been in close proximity - within 2m for at least 30 minutes - to coronavirus patients using wireless Bluetooth technology, said its developers, the Government Technology Agency (GovTech) and the Ministry of Health (MOH), on Friday (March 20)."
dr tech

Smartphones could help us track the coronavirus - but at what cost? | John Naughton | O... - 0 views

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    "There's a technology that could be really useful in providing a real-time measure of the effectiveness (or otherwise) of public policy. But it's so intrusive that in "normal" times we would be very hesitant to adopt it. Present times are not normal, though, so we will probably adopt it - perhaps sensibly - "just for the duration of the crisis". And then?"
dr tech

Contact apps won't end lockdown. But they might kill off democracy | John Naughton | Op... - 0 views

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    "There are clear indications that the UK government is now actively considering use of the technology as a way of easing the lockdown. If this signals an outbreak in Whitehall of tech "solutionism" - the belief that for every problem there is a technological answer - then we should be concerned. Tech solutions often do as much harm as good, for example, by increasing social exclusion, lacking accountability and failing to make real inroads into the problem they are supposedly addressing."
dr tech

Contact tracing apps unsafe if Bluetooth vulnerabilities not fixed | ZDNet - 0 views

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    "As more governments turn to contact tracing apps to aid in their efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak, cybersecurity experts are warning this may spark renewed interest in Bluetooth attacks. They urge developers to ensure such apps are regularly tested for vulnerabilities and release patches swiftly to plug potential holes, while governments should provide assurance that their databases are secure and the data collected will not be used for purposes other than as originally intended. "
yeehaw

Singapore Police Force can obtain TraceTogether data for criminal investigations: Desmo... - 0 views

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    "The Singapore Police Force (SPF) can obtain TraceTogether data for criminal investigations"
dr tech

Part human, part machine: is Apple turning us all into cyborgs? | Technology | The Guar... - 0 views

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    "But whether we trust Apple might be beside the point, if we don't yet know whether we can trust ourselves. It took eight years from the launch of the iPhone for screen time controls to follow. What will human interaction look like eight years after smartglasses become ubiquitous? Our cyborg present sneaked up on us as our phones became glued to our hands. Are we going to sleepwalk into our cyborg future in the same way?"
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