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Content type: Examples
Malaysia will use both government-owned drones and drones borrowed from local industries under the direction of the armed forces and on-the-ground police to monitor compliance with the Movement Control Order. Because Malaysia doesn't have enough drones to cover the whole country, they will be focused on 12 hotspots where people resist compliance.
Source:
https://www.commercialdroneprofessional.com/coronavirus-malaysia-to-use-drones-to-control-public-movement/
https://www.malaymail.com/…
Content type: Examples
The Indonesian Doctors Association has asked the government to open up the identity of patients who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in order to facilitate contact tracing and improve the efficiency of efforts to prevent further spread, arguing that in an emergency like this the public will support the disclosure in the interests of safety.
Source: https://mediaindonesia.com/read/detail/296992-permudah-kontak-tracing-idi-dorong-pemerintah-buka-data-pasien
Writer: Atalya…
Content type: Examples
The first two confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia and their neighbours became the targets of media coverage and social media abuse after their personal details were spread via WhatsApp and other social media soon after the President announced the positive tests results - before anyone told the patients themselves. The Health Ministry denied responsibility for the data breach.
Sources:
https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/03/04/covid-19-patients-become-victims-of-indonesias-lack-of-…
Content type: Examples
The Hungarian government is seeking to extend indefinitely the state of emergency it has declared because of the coronavirus epidemic. The extension, which was debated in the Hungarian parliament on March 23, would allow the government to rule by decree without parliamentary approval for as long as the government, which has a two-thirds majority in any case, thinks necessary, provide prison terms of up to five years for those convicted of spreading misinformation about the epidemic, and up to…
Content type: Examples
Technology such as Hong Kong's electronic monitoring bracelets, used to ensure that people do not break their mandated quarantine, may appear reasonable during a pandemic, but could be problematic if deployed widely and used to identify those who have joined anti-government protests. The same applies to emergency legislation such as that passed by the UK government granting the government extraordinary new powers to shut down airports and ban gatherings. History provides examples:…
Content type: Examples
The Hong Kong Department of Health has asked the police to deploy its computerised Major Incident Investigation and Disaster Support System in order to trace the contacts of patients infected by the novel coronavirus. The request for the system, which was used during the SARS epidemic in 2003, came after 59 police officers were placed under quarantine after a 48-year-old officer they had partied with tested positive.
Source: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202002/22/…
Content type: Examples
The Greek government issued a ban on all unnecessary traffic from March 23 to April 6 in order to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Anyone moving around under one of the list of exceptions must carry a police identity card or passport and a certificate of movement, which citizens obtain by filling out an online form (at form.gov.gr), or by filling out a paper form listing the reason for leaving home, or by sending an SMS. Employees are issued a certificate by their employer. The government…
Content type: Examples
The self-testing web app issued by Argentina's Secretariat of Public Innovation asks for national ID number, email and phone as mandatory fields in order to submit the test. The Android version requires numerous permissions: calendar, contacts, geolocation data (both network-based and GPS), microphone, camera, full network access; change audio settings, run at startup; draw over other apps, prevent device from sleeping.
Sources:
https://www.argentina.gob.ar/coronavirus/app
https://play.…
Content type: Examples
The free app Testeate, developed by the company Adrómeda in collaboration with the Association of Information and Communication Technologies of Mar del Plata (ATICMA) and the Chamber of Software and Computer Services Companies of Argentina (CESSI) and launched in the Municipality of General Pueyrredón on March 26, is intended to enable direct information exchange between Argentina's National Ministry of Health and the population by offering constantly updated information in any city and…
Content type: Examples
Albania deployed the army for a planned 40 hours to enforce a curfew that the country initiated on March 21 to control the spread of COVID-19 after citizens continued to openly ignore the orders to stay at home. Although the country had only 76 confirmed cases at the time, it was concerned about the potential spread from 120,000 people who had returned from Italy before March 9, when the country cut travel links.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/mar/21/coronavirus…
Content type: Examples
At the MIT Media lab, Ramesh Raskar is leading a team that includes software engineers at companies such as Facebook and Uber to develop the free and open source app Private Kit: Safe Paths. The app is intended to share encrypted information between phones in the network without going through a central authority so that individuals can see if they've come in contact with someone carrying the coronavirus. Anyone who tests positive can choose to share location data with health officials, who can…
Content type: Examples
Kinsa Health, which has sold or given away more than 1 million internet-connected thermometers to household covering 2 million people, finds that the maps it creates showing the difference between expected (based on years of data the company has collected) and reported levels of fever may act as an early warning system for spreading illness. Abut 90% of COVID-19 patients have fever. The company has posted its data and maps to medRxiv, and also to a new website it has built.
Source: https…
Content type: Examples
After Asian countries used mass surveillance of smartphones to trace contacts and halt the spread of the coronavirus, Western countries such as the UK and Germany are trying to find less-invasive ways to use phones to collect and share data about infections that would work within data privacy laws and retain public trust. Nearly half of virus transmissions may occur before the individual shows symptoms of the disease. At Oxford researchers are working on a notification app that would notify…
Content type: Examples
Facebook's scientists are analysing location data about compliance with social distancing recommendations in various countries using information from a private vault of location information its apps have collected. The analysis shows that only "very modest" changes in habits in the US, France, and the UK, and much more substantial change in Spain and Italy between mid-February and mid-March. Other companies such as Google and Apple, may also be able to contribute insights into public behaviour…
Content type: Examples
Because tracking and limiting the movement of those suspected to be carrying COVID-19 carriers has been a factor in flattening the exponential curve of cases in places like Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea, Professor Marylouise McLaws, a technical advisor to the WHO's Infection Prevention and Control Global Unit and a professor at the University of New South Wales, believes that we should use travellers' smartphones to electronically monitor their compliance with self-isolation orders.…
Content type: Case Study
Having a right to a nationality isn’t predicated on giving up your right to privacy - and allowing whichever government runs that country to have as much information as they want. It is about having a fundamental right to government protection.
For the first time since 1951, Assam - a state in the north east of India - has been updating its national register of citizens (NRC), a list of everyone in Assam that the government considers to be an Indian citizen. The final version, published in…
Content type: Examples
According to information collected by Le Temps, telco Swisscom will use SIM card geolocation data to communicate to federal authorities when more than 20 phones are detected in an 100 square meters area. Gathering of more than 5 people are forbidden in Switzerland since March 21.
Data collected by the telco should theoretically only come from public areas and not private building. This data will be anonymised and aggregate before being passed to the health authorities (Office fédéral de la…
Content type: Advocacy
The letter has been signed by more than 40 organisations and it is open for individuals to sign.
At the moment, the Department of Health and Social Care has given no assurance that NHS data will not be shared with the Home Office and used for immigration enforcement, including for those people with a confirmed coronavirus diagnosis.
Assurances which were confirmed by the Irish government as part of their response to COVID-19: last week, during a Parliamentary debate, Irish Minister of Health…
Content type: Examples
The Thai Tech Startup Association, Department of Disease Control (Ministry of Public Health), Digital Economy Promotion Agency (Ministry of Digital Economy and Society), and National Innovation Agency have developed a questionnaire on an app which as adverised on the Thai Tech Startup Associaiton the questionnaire is designed for people to self-assess if they are in high risk or not. Developed by the Department of Diseases the questionnaire asks a variety of questions related to symptoms…
Content type: Examples
The Belgian Minister of Public Health has approved a programme under which telephone companies Proximus and Telenet will transfer some of their their data to the private third-party company Dalberg Data Insights in order to help combat the coronavirus epidemic; Orange has also agreed "in principle". The details are still to be agreed pending a legal and technical analysis of the proposed project. So far it has been reported that location data and real-time tracking would be used to assess the…
Content type: Examples
Researchers at the University of Oxford are working with the UK government on an app similar to the smartphone tracking system China developed to alert people who have come in contact with someone infected with the coronavirus. The British app, which would be associated with the country's National Health Service,, would rely on the public volunteering to share their location data out of a sense of civic duty rather than, as in China, compulsion. The service would not publish the movements of…
Content type: Examples
Among the emergency measures announced by Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic, the military will guard hospitals and police will monitor those in quarantine or self-isolation for 14 or 28 days, who could face jail terms of up to three years for violating the rules.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-serbia/serbia-calls-state-of-emergency-to-counter-coronavirus-idUSKBN21215E
Writer: Reuters
Publication: Reuters
Content type: Examples
Russia has set up a coronavirus information centre to to monitor social media for misinformation about the coronavirus and spot empty supermarket shelves using a combination of surveillance cameras and AI. The centre also has a database of contacts and places of work for 95% of those under mandatory quarantine after returning from countries where the virus is active. Sherbank, Russia's biggest bank, has agreed to pay for a free app that will provide free telemedicine consultations.
Source:…
Content type: Examples
Four members of the Council of Europe - Romania, Latvia, Moldova, and Armenia - have activated Article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which allows derogations in cases of public emergency. Derogation allows Member States to take measures to the extent required by the situation as long as those do not contravene other obligations such as the articles that prohibit torture and slavery and protect the right to life.
Source: https://www.g4media.ro/romania-moldova-letonia-si-…
Content type: Examples
Four members of the Council of Europe - Romania, Latvia, Moldova, and Armenia - have activated Article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which allows derogations in cases of public emergency. Derogation allows Member States to take measures to the extent required by the situation as long as those do not contravene other obligations such as the articles that prohibit torture and slavery and protect the right to life.
Source: https://www.g4media.ro/romania-moldova-letonia-si-…
Content type: Examples
Four members of the Council of Europe - Romania, Latvia, Moldova, and Armenia - have activated Article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which allows derogations in cases of public emergency. Derogation allows Member States to take measures to the extent required by the situation as long as those do not contravene other obligations such as the articles that prohibit torture and slavery and protect the right to life.
Source: https://www.g4media.ro/romania-moldova-letonia-si-…
Content type: Examples
Four members of the Council of Europe - Romania, Latvia, Moldova, and Armenia - have activated Article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which allows derogations in cases of public emergency. Derogation allows Member States to take measures to the extent required by the situation as long as those do not contravene other obligations such as the articles that prohibit torture and slavery and protect the right to life.
Source: https://www.g4media.ro/romania-moldova-letonia-si-…
Content type: Examples
In emergency legislation, the government of Norway proposed to exempt itself from current laws other than the Constitution and human rights so that it could issue new rules and regulations without needing Parliamentary debate even if they conflict with other laws. MPs may intervene if a third of them oppose the rules. The bill includes a sunset clause so it will expire automatically on December 31, 2020.
Writer: The Local
Source: https://www.thelocal.no/20200318/norway-to-rush-through-…
Content type: Examples
The identities of Montenegro's first two confirmed COVID-19 patients were published by social media users, including photos of one of the patients and her family, leading to online abuse based on their ethnicity and religious beliefs.
Source: https://balkaninsight.com/2020/03/18/montenegrin-coronavirus-patients-identities-exposed-online/
Writer: Samir Kajosevic
Publication: BalkanInsight
Content type: Examples
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has authorised the country's internal security agency to use a previously secret tranche of mobile phone geolocation data, gathered to combat terrorism, to retrace the movements of individuals with confirmed cases of the coronavirus and identify people they've interacted with who should be quarantined. After Parliament's Secret Services Subcommittee ended its discussions without approving the measure, Netanyahu said the government would approve…