The novel coronavirus pandemic is causing hundreds of thousands of deaths
wrecking economic devastation locking down much of the world independent
communities globally but going forward one of the viruses most significant
legacies or you really won't be its death toll or its effect on daily life
but the way the pandemic strengthens another major global disruption from the
last few years the rise and spread of digital surveillance let's talk about
that public health measures have always depended on surveillance but that has
been especially true in government's responses to the corona virus China
after initially suppressing news of the a break-in Wuhan used its arsenal of
surveillance tools to tackle the pandemic these techniques ranged from
deploying hundreds of thousands of neighborhood monitors to log the
movements and temperatures of individuals to the mass surveillance of
mobile phone rail and flight data to track down people who have traveled to
infected regions but honestly we've come to expect this level of mass
surveillance from China it's the rest of the world following in China's footsteps
that has become most worrying just beyond China's borders democratic
countries in East Asia have also used expansive surveillance powers to battle
covert 19 South Korea harness CCTV and credit card data to track the movements
of millions of citizens and Taiwan integrated health and other databases so
all Taiwanese hospitals clinics and pharmacies could access the personal
travel information of their patients while depositories of information like
these can be valuable for tracking down at-risk individuals there's nothing to
stop government agencies from tracking people in general now that this
information has been compiled and that's before we even talk about the
possibilities of bad actors gaining access to these databases as they've
struggled to contain the spread of the virus even Western more liberal
democracies or looking at China's tools for limiting the outbreak and wondering
if they should adopt some of these more authoritarian methods what makes this
debate even trickier is how effective these methods have been at containing
the virus East Asian countries have demonstrated that a robust regime of
surveillance is essential to fighting a pandemic and Western democracy
I have been somewhat forced to meet the need for democratic surveillance to
protect their own citizens the expansion of surveillance in response to a crisis
isn't anything new one of the biggest long-term impacts of
the September 11th attacks was expanded surveillance in the United States and
other democracies by both public and private sectors after 9/11 the
government through programs at the NSA and CIA began monitoring millions of
Americans who could have any connection to people in global hot spots like Iran
even if there was nothing linking these people to any known terrorist threat and
tens of thousands of people got secretly added to government less like the no-fly
list to be monitored all without ever being accused of wrongdoing similarly
one of kovat 19's most important long-term impacts will likely be a
similar reshaping of digital surveillance across the globe prompted
by a global health need to more closely monitor citizens battling epidemics has
long required the monitoring of populations to first understand and then
limit the spread of disease one of the founders of Epidemiology Jon Snow no
relation pioneered the use of surveillance to tackle infectious
diseases in 1831 cholera first arrived in the UK its first wave killed
thousands and outbreaks kept popping up for years afterwards in August and
September of 1854 the London neighborhood of Soho got hit by an
especially bad outbreak over three days 127 people died on a single Street snow
lived nearby and his local contacts allowed him to monitor the epidemic he
combed the district interviewing the families of victims by tracing their
comings and goings he found the source of the outbreak to
be a water pump used by the community about ten days into the outbreak who
persuaded local authorities to remove the pump handle as an experiment almost
instantly cholera cases swiftly declined since snows day every functioning state
has built institutions that attempt to safeguard public health by similar means
of tracking the spread of infections by tracking the spread of people these
modern public practices have saved hundreds of millions of lives and each
generation since now has used ever more powerful tools of surveillance
in the service of the perceived common good oddly enough surveillance and
freedom don't inherently have to be at odds in the 20th century the UK became a
far more democratic country even as the state adopted more powers of
surveillance keen 19th century advances like those enabled by the factory acts
the protected child and adult workers required new systems for inspection and
monitoring of the country's economy the government made new police forces
designed to watch the economy and enforce these new laws this example
illustrates how expanding surveillance capabilities don't have to be at odds
with personal freedoms of course not all states use surveillance for the
betterment of the people the governments of seemingly democratic countries use
surveillance techniques like wiretaps to monitor political rivals and suppress
dissent in the wake of the September 11 attacks the US government expanded its
powers including broadening warrantless surveillance by the NSA the name to
identify terrorist suspects through sifting vast amounts of digital data
think the NSA's massive data collection centers the turn toward greater
surveillance after 9/11 wasn't just limited to the private sector the u.s.
never adopted commercial privacy protections they would have guarded the
data of individuals renting companies like Facebook and Google from collecting
vast amounts of user data it was nearly no limits on its use just
as the September 11 attacks are should a new surveillance practices in the US the
corona virus pandemic looks poised to do the very same in many countries around
the world every functioning state now has a public health strategy to tackle
kovat 19 that emphasizes both monitoring residents and trying to influence their
behavior through different levels of stay at home orders but neither the u.s.
nor Europe have used the widespread and intrusive surveillance methods applied
in East Asia and as a result the Western approach promises to be much less
successful consider these strategies of five East Asian countries ranging from
the democracies of South Korea and Taiwan to the authoritarian Chinese
state that all relied on prominent surveillance methods South Korea has so
far successfully curbed the spread of Cobra 19 using classical public health
surveillance through large-scale testing but so also in
we tracked down potentially infected individuals by looking at credit card
transactions CCTV footage and other data local authorities even released personal
data so individuals could be publicly identified and Korean officials have
taken to enforcing self quarantine through tracking citizens smartphone
locations taiwan has kept the number of cases very low by employing strict
surveillance of people coming into the country and widely distributing that
information in february 10/1 announced that all hospitals clinics and
pharmacies across the country could access their patients travel histories
just as in south korea officials in taiwan used phone apps to enforce the
quarantine and keep track of suspected infected individuals in hong kong issued
all new arrivals an electronic wristband that track their movements and monitored
whether they violated quarantine trenni sheer size makes it the most significant
case well the pandemic did originate in China that doesn't diminish the tangible
success of their strategy of heavy surveillance to curtail its spread its
grid management system divides the country into sections and assigns people
to watch over one another over a million local monitors log movements take
temperatures and enforce rules about other residents activities at the same
time state-run transportation companies and major telecom providers all require
customers to present government-issued IDs to buy tickets and SIM cards
enabling unusually precise mass surveillance of individuals who traveled
through certain regions and authorities in Beijing have employed facial
recognition algorithms to identify commuters who aren't wearing a mask or
who aren't wearing one properly and because of China's use of social credit
scores that can affect everything from what school you get into to what loans
banks will offer you there are real-world consequences to
violating these orders since public health strategies depend on the
surveillance of local populations Western governments have faced huge
pressure to increase their surveillance capabilities to ward off future
pandemics and the biggest fear is that after these latest crises pass the
government's won't be quick to give up their newfound surveillance capabilities
liberal democracies across the world are going to have to grapple with the
delicate balance between protecting their citizens and overreaching their
powers and if his trees any prelude a little struggle to
do so I hope you enjoyed this episode of everything science if you did be sure to
subscribe so you never miss an upload and remember there's always more to
learn