“The whole idea is to be ahead of the curve,' said Frederic Pivetta, the founder of Dalberg, a data analytics firm that has been contracted by the Belgian government to use telecom data to map the spread of the coronavirus. It was defeated, but telecoms-to-government data transfers are happening on an ad hoc basis.Įuropean Commissioner Thierry Breton | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images In France, two conservative senators last week tabled an amendment that would authorize telecoms operators to collect health and location data on all mobile phone users for six months. And some European lawmakers are already calling for similar surveillance powers closer to home. In Israel, the government last week approved sweeping new emergency surveillance powers that allow authorities to enforce quarantine orders and warn people about potentially infectious encounters.ĭespite the potential for snooping and privacy breaches, the EU has said it would continue to approve the transfer of data about EU citizens to Israel. The speed with which such solutions have not just been rolled out, but also been largely accepted by anxious populations is prompting critics to warn of a danger to democracy. Now, drones are deployed in Brussels, the heart of Europe's institutional capital, to enforce social-distancing rules, and stay-at-home orders are being broadcast through the streets of German cities. Just a few weeks ago, when the pandemic was still a distant fear, privacy advocates latched on to a clip of Chinese police ordering an elderly woman back into her home via drone-mounted loudspeaker as an example of Big Brother tactics gone awry. The personal benefit of briefly giving up your privacy feels much bigger than with terrorist attacks.” Apps for the infected “The acceptance level for tracking is higher,' said Staffan Truvé, chief technology officer of cybersecurity intelligence firm Recorded Future. The race to embrace invasive tools underscores a simple dynamic at play during the current global pandemic: Public health concerns are trumping the desire to protect individuals' privacy online and in the real world, even in the home of the General Data Protection Regulation, Europe's sweeping privacy rules.Īnd so far, regulators and the public are largely standing by. Some, like the Israeli NSO Group and facial recognition company Clearview AI, have barely emerged from controversies about their practices, while others, like U.S.-based Palantir, are closely linked to the intelligence and defense communities in the United States. While governments seek out more effective tracking tools, companies best known for providing digital surveillance for security forces are proving only too happy to oblige. The personal benefit of briefly giving up your privacy feels much bigger than with terrorist attacks” - Staffan Truvé, CTO of Recorded Future 9/11 showed us that in times of crisis, we can erode people’s rights.' “But we shouldn’t just institute global surveillance.

“It would be much more efficient if everyone had the same app,” said Sune Lehmann Jørgensen, a professor at the Technical University of Denmark who is advising the government on how best to track the coronavirus.

Rki corona tracker