You might be familiar with the “ankle bracelet.” A digital tether that features in TV cop shows. In the age of the COVID19 political response, they are being considered for much wider application. For the same purpose, just destigmatized and made ubiquitous.
Related: Impfung Macht Frei
To limit or track movement. Contact tracing. That thing Google does, but you can’t not know it is happening. Some so-called privacy advocates are worried about who would have access to the data and where it is kept, and for how long.
Like all the policy ideas that have been quickly cooked up in the course of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the use of electronic bracelets raises several questions that currently have no answers. …
Who will have to wear the bracelets? Who will receive the information on an ongoing basis (the Ministry of Health, the police)? Who will keep this information secure? Who will have access to it, and for what purposes? What will be done with this information once the period of quarantine is over?
I can answer these questions without being a privacy expert. No one, nowhere, and look, no problem. Don’t wear them, don’t collect it.
And stop treating people who tested positive (flawed test) and have almost nothing to fear like criminals—especially those who do not know these truths because you continue to hide them.
Tehilla Shwartz-Altshuler, writing for the Jerusalem Post, can’t seem to find a way there. Quite the opposite.
In short, it will be necessary to anchor this decision in legislation and in regulations that will provide answers to these questions.
Here’s my thinking on that, from another television program.
The answer to the abuse of power infringement upon personal privacy question is not to ensconce that power permanently in a statute—quite the opposite. We need penalties for its application for anything but convicted felons and a healthy respect for the need to limit the sorts of violations that warrant even that designation.
After the past twelve months, who among us cannot picture the charge of felony intent to spread, insert nervous laughter here.
Sure, these quotes come to us from Israel. It is not America or even New Hamshire, but the idea is not restricted to the sole Democracy in the Middle East. And it seems to my casual eye – after 12 years as an armchair political pundit, that this solution was one that’s long been looking a problem.
And look, they think they found one. Hello, SARS COv2.
“Hey, you know what, we need to keep track of people because this is probably just the beginning.”
Well, you’ve got that part right. It’s the beginning of something. I’ll give you that. But not something of which I want any part.
Sure, I own a cellphone, and I know what that means, but I can turn it off, apply limiting tools, store it in a faraday cage, or leave it home. A world that openly embraces voluntary surveillance because of some flu that over 99% of infected people survive is asking for a full-time police state-level of individual surveillance that never goes away.
Hard pass!
