This month, several imported instances of COVID-19 were reported in Taiwan, showing instances with unknown infection resources. With the global pandemic ongoing and the time for an approved vaccine uncertain, Taiwan was once overshadowed by fears of a momentary wave of infections.
In response, politicians and government officials proposed a new generation of surveillance to keep the good luck of disease prevention efforts.
Former Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳仁) said the key to winning the war opposing COVID-19 lies in cutting-edge technologies and techniques, such as socially distanced cellular programs and tracking people’s fitness, automated x-ray chest systems, viral strain analysis, and intelligent systems that use synthetic intelligence and big data.
For example, in the first part of this year, Taiwan used state-of-the-art technologies to prevent it from expanding the network by creating a database for remote quarantine inspectors, fitness facilities for construction, and adoption of a geographic tracking system.
The Central Epidemic Command Center worked with HTC DeepQ’s fitness department and the Line messaging app, and in April presented an online chatbot called “Disease Containment Expert” to provide data and attention to others in home quarantine.
The government also used a location-based alert formula that used mobile tower data to provide first-hand data on COVID-19 prevention.
Although cutting-edge technologies have maintained their normal lives, their active promotion through government, as well as concerns about the spread of the virus, have led others to the potential dangers and social inequalities that result from their use, and the public has allowed the government to monitor and control their daily lives through surveillance technology.
For example, last month the Israeli parliament allowed COVID-19 patients to be tracked and monitored from their cell phones, generating surveillance from Israeli security firm Shin Bet.
Interestingly, a surveillance policy that seriously invades your privacy shows no sign of reducing Israeli confidence in your government and army’s ability to manage COVID-19 prevention.
While this may be due to the fact that Israelis have long been under surveillance through intelligence agencies, their acceptance of the government’s resolve to allow the virus prevention generation to interfere with their daily lives is undoubtedly the main explanation for why such an invasion of privacy allowed it. .
While generating surveillance can damage privacy, excessive surveillance generation raises other concerns.
After the emergence of COVID-19, the South Korean government followed the astonishing strategy of tracking the activities of patients inflamed by the virus, such as lunch in restaurants, going to the cinema, visiting public services, and recording them in detail in a virtual. magazine in the South. Website of the Ministry of Health and Welfare of Korea.
An “extreme transparency” surveillance measure slows the spread of the virus, but also allows other malicious people to collect information about the location of the patients shown, speculate on their genuine identity and can lead to stigma and discrimination.
In addition to focusing on the threat of invasion of privacy created by the government’s use of surveillance technology, others will be involved in the development of social inequality created through its use.
In the United States, where the virus prevails, privacy at home, the first position that comes to the brain when you think about the personal, is in danger.
Many generation corporations are competing to launch a “contactless generation” designed for the physical contact infection option.
For example, some U.S. owners have installed a facial popularity formula called BioConnect Cares for contactless door protection, cutting off the network transmission option.
However, the formula collects biometric and fitness knowledge from residents, giving landlords the personal data of their tenants, which can later be used as a currency of exchange for hiring negotiations.
It appears to exacerbate inequalities between landlords and tenants and seriously undermine the housing rights of disadvantaged people.
Used in the political arena, the generation never remains neutral. Fortunately, other people still have time for privacy crises created through those technologies.
Taiwan’s government and citizens make smart use of all the time they would have before a wave of COVID-19 to read very well about those technologies, those in use and those awaiting adoption.
Keep in mind that what protects other people isn’t just “full and unbiased data.”
Taiwanese oversee how their government implements these technologies in the call to combat a pandemic, to prevent surveillance systems from adapting to an overall component of daily life.
In addition, others deserve to think about the threat of privacy violations caused by new technologies and the inequality disorders they can create.
Chang Liang and Wu Xiao-mi are for their master’s degrees at the Yang-Ming National University Institute of Science, Technology and Society.