<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<header class="css-d92687">
<h1 class="css-19v093x">Coronavirus is Pushing Mass Surveillance
in India, and It’s Going to Change Everything</h1>
<div class="css-1x1jxeu">
<div class="css-7kp13n">By</div>
<div class="css-7ol5x1"><span class="css-1q5ec3n">Pallavi Pundir</span></div>
<div class="css-8rl9b7">vice.com</div>
<div class="css-zskk6u">7 min</div>
</div>
<div class="css-1890bmp"><a
href="https://getpocket.com/redirect?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vice.com%2Fen_in%2Farticle%2Fqjd9ew%2Fcoronavirus-surveillance-privacy-india"
target="_blank" class="css-1neb7j1">View Original</a></div>
</header>
<div data-type="image-lede">
<div>
<div><source media="(min-width: 0px)"></div>
</div>
</div>
<p>Over the last couple of months, coronavirus has transformed many
aspects of most of our lives—from what ‘outdoor’ and ‘freedom’
mean to us to the <a
href="https://www.vice.com/en_in/article/xgqm5k/the-overwhelming-loneliness-of-a-world-emptied-by-coronavirus">impact
on our mental health</a> when we can’t physically touch the
people we love, to the kind of <a
href="https://www.vice.com/en_in/article/9398b8/why-people-hoard-toilet-paper-emergency-coronavirus">manic
behaviours</a> we are capable of when facing shortages. But if
we zoom out a little, we see that one of the biggest changes it’s
making around the world is how we look at surveillance and
privacy—with the COVID-19 outbreak probably altering their
definitions and boundaries forever. “The world has never seen this
kind of a situation before,” Nikhil Pahwa, New Delhi-based digital
rights activist and founder of digital news portal <i>MediaNama</i>,
told VICE. “From a civil rights perspective, the challenge is of
balancing the health of many versus the privacy of a few.”</p>
<p>You could see that when governments started expanding the
possibilities of technology in their countries. Look at <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/09/the-new-normal-chinas-excessive-coronavirus-public-monitoring-could-be-here-to-stay">China,
who is tracking</a> people through their smartphones; or Israel,
who used its <a
href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/shin-bet-says-it-found-500-coronavirus-carriers-with-its-mass-surveillance/">counter-terrorism
agency</a> to monitor people; or even Singapore, who is using a
<a
href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/singapore-is-using-a-high-tech-surveillance-app-to-track-the-coronavirus-keeping-schools-and-businesses-open-heres-how-it-works-/articleshow/74797714.cms">contact-tracing
smartphone app</a> to track infected people.</p>
<p>India, too, is taking matters into its own hands. In Rajasthan,
the <a
href="https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2020/03/22/privacy-of-covid-19-suspects-violated-names-addresses-made-public.html">government
made public the personal details</a> of those under
home-quarantine. In Karnataka, they mandated all those quarantined
to <a
href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/all-those-home-quarantined-in-state-need-to-send-selfies-to-govt-every-hour-karnataka-minister-1661517-2020-03-30">send
selfies</a> every hour throughout the day. Cities like Delhi had
government officials <a
href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/home-quarantine-posters-put-up-to-prevent-spread/articleshow/74801174.cms">plastering
posters</a> on home-quarantined patients’ houses that revealed
their names and those of their family members. Tamil Nadu is using
a <a
href="https://www.medianama.com/2020/04/223-face-recognition-tamil-nadu-quarantine-coronavirus/">facial
recognition app</a> to track quarantined people. And then, last
week, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology <a
href="https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/mobile/government-of-india-launches-official-covid-19-tracking-app/74950482">launched
a contact tracing mobile app</a> called Aarogya Setu, which
live-tracks the location of the users.</p>
<p>These measures are, of course, passed off as legitimate in the
face of a crisis. The World Health Organisation (WHO) calls this “<a
href="https://www.who.int/topics/public_health_surveillance/en/">public
health surveillance</a>”, which is necessary for governments to
warn and prepare for possible public health emergencies. So in
Delhi, for instance, when the posters with personal details
started cropping up in front of quarantined people’s homes, Dr
Nimmi Rastogi—the coordinator at dialogue and development
commission (an advisory body in Delhi government)—justified the
move by saying that it is in the larger interest of the society.
“At this time, I believe this step is fine because we have to
prevent the spread and have to make people wary of coming in
contact with those suspected to be carriers of coronavirus,” she
told the <a
href="https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2020/03/22/privacy-of-covid-19-suspects-violated-names-addresses-made-public.html">local
media</a>.</p>
<p>[...]<br>
</p>
</body>
</html>