India: BECIL puts out tender for electronic bracelets to enforce quarantine
After a call from a vendor, India's state-owned Broadcast Engineering Consultants Limited (BECIL) put out an expression of interest for electronic bracelets and accompanying software for use to ensure that COVID-19 patients do not violate their quarantine orders.
A hundred companies responded. BECIL saw the idea as an opportunity to sell a patient surveillance system to municipal corporations, private companies, welfare resident societies, and central government departments. BECIL, which was set up in the 1990s to roll out cable, TV, and radio channels, has become a purveyor of surveillance, selling surveillance cameras to state governments, drone-based mapping, and technologies for health and education.
A 2018 tender to collect social media postings from all Indians was recalled after a Supreme Court challenge. Features suggested in the new tender include the ability to incorporate billing records, cellphone data, and Cellebrite's analysis software. The Internet Freedom Foundation has issued a challenge.
Writer: Gayathri Vaidyanathan
Publication: Huffington Post