The pandemic surveillance state: an enduring legacy of COVID-19

Abstract

Containing the spread of pandemic transmission tends to go hand in hand with a surveillance regime that tracks movement, transmission and those who contract the virus or disease. An enduring legacy of the COVID-19 crisis will be the incremental development of surveillance technologies, ostensibly purposed to identify the threat and spread of a pandemic, giving birth to what amounts to the pandemic surveillance state. Whether this is seen as an undesirable outcome depends very much on the field of expertise and the relevant slant. Health professionals and epidemiologists favor more surveillance; privacy and data security advocates fear a further denuding of protections. This paper examines the dangers of such technologies and efforts to seek a middle ground on app technologies designed to protect privacy. Such designs may, in time, seem more hopeful than actual.