Educational

Eight days after instituting a gender-based quarantine schedule, Peruvian president Martin Vizcarra cancelled the measure two days before it was due to end. It had been met with a backlash from LGBTQ+ activists, who feared trans and binary people would face increasing street harassment from police

On April 20 Hong Kong authorities arrested some of the most prominent anti-China activists. The need to clear the streets to protect public health during the COVID-19 outbreak provided the authorities an opportunity to cripple the protest movement that had spread across the country beginning in mid

The regulations brought in to curb the spread of COVID-19 in South Africa included directions published by the minister of communications and digital technologies that critics claimed violated the country's constitution. On the plus side, the regulations ordered service providers to ensure continued

Drone manufacturer DJI has loaned five drones equipped with voice capabilities and sirens to the US town of Elizabeth, New Jersey for use to patrol public areas and warn violators of the state's lockdown rules. The drones' messages are recordings of the mayor telling people to stop gathering

The travel bans and border controls instituted to prevent the spread of COVID-19 jeopardise refugees’ access to international protection, bringing the right to leave any country and seek asylum into direct collision with the human right to life. Source: https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au

To help the UK's Department for Work and Pensions handle the more than half a million applications the department received in the last two weeks of March, the identity verification company Nomidio, a subsidiary of Post-Quantum, is offering its service free of charge. The service would enable a

British biometric start-ups are helping the UK government create digital passports. VST Enterprises is providing a biometrics-backed digital health care passport, V-COVID, to help critical NHS and emergency services workers get back to work; the passport will incorporate test results and be included

Ten Ugandan police officers were charged with torture after allegedly caning 38 women and forcing them to swim in mud in Elegu, a town in the northern part of the country. Police have also arrested 23 people during a raid on a shelter for homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth

Tunisian authorities have sent humanly remote-controlled robots onto the streets to enforce the country's lockdown; videos shared on social media show the robots challenging Tunisians in the country's capital to ask if they are aware of the rules and demand where they are going. The robots, known as

Tanzania's Communication Regulatory Authority punished three TV stations for airing content that was "misleading and untrue" about the government's strategy on fighting coronavirus. Critics believe that TCRA objected to a report that criticised President John Magufuli for saying that churches should

Filipino officials are subjecting people caught breaking lockdown rules to humiliating and abusive punishments such as locking them in cramped dog cages or forcing them to sit outside in the midday sun, similar to tactics in China, where authorities have been filmed tying violators to pillars and

Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte has exempted survey teams and National ID system registrars from lockdown rules on the basis that they are essential to providing cash distributions and other government responses intended to soften the impact of the community quarantine. Duterte argued that the

While the agency that manages residence permits, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, is closed, Israel has instructed Palestinians seeking to verify whether their permits to remain in Israel are still valid to download the app Al Munasiq, which grants the military access to

As part of Mexico City's March 31 lockdown, which shut all shops except those relating to health, food, and essential services, telephone companies will provide access to cell phone antennas to enable the Digital Agency of Public Innovation to monitor movement and personal contact. The information

North Macedonia is the first country in the Western Balkans to launch a contact-tracing app. The government has stressed that the Bluetooth-based app, StopKorona!, complies with all legal privacy requirements. The app follows a decentralised design, so that users maintain full control over their

India's COVID-19 tracker app, Aarogya Setu, was downloaded 50 million times in the first 13 days it was available. Developed by the National Informatics Centre a subsidiary of the Ministry of Electronics and IT, the app is available on both Android and iOS smartphones, and uses GPS and Bluetooth to