Big Tech Is Using Pandemic To Push Dangerous New Forms Of Surveillance
Data from new smartphone apps being used to track COVID infections can easily be weaponized against groups of people
Kilgore, James
http://truthout.org/articles/big-tech-is-using-the-pandemic-to-push-dangerous-new-forms-of-surveillance/
Date Written: 2020-06-22
Publisher: Truthout
Year Published: 2020
Resource Type: Article
Cx Number: CX25149
For more than two decades, the ankle shackle has remained the standard electronic monitoring (EM) device. While cellphones, tablets, smartwatches and laptop computers evolved, the black plastic band remained — bulging out under socks and scraping the skin off criminalized legs. Even at this stage of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, many of these devices require a landline phone to function. They retain ancestral ties to the analog age.
Abstract:
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Excerpt:
COVID-19 and decarceration are bringing rapid change to this monitoring landscape. As Sam Biddle of The Intercept has argued, “a climate of perpetual bio-anxiety has paved the way for broader acceptance of carceral technologies.” In the world of electronic monitoring, this may ultimately spell the end of ankle-based shackles and the ushering in of a range of smaller, more powerful devices that grab far more than location data. Furthermore, as local authorities look for ways to defund policing, new technologies may be one of the carceral “solutions” they employ to dilute the demands for transformation.
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