In the pandemic’s bewildering early days, millions worldwide believed government officials who said they needed confidential data for new tech tools that could help stop coronavirus’ spread. In return, governments got a firehose of individuals’ private health details, photographs that captured their facial measurements and their home addresses.

Now, from Beijing to Jerusalem to Hyderabad, India, and Perth, Australia, The Associated Press has found that authorities used these technologies and data to halt travel for activists and ordinary people, harass marginalized communities and link people’s health information to other surveillance and law enforcement tools. In some cases, data was shared with spy agencies. The issue has taken on fresh urgency almost three years into the pandemic as China’s ultra-strict zero-COVID policies recently ignited the sharpest public rebuke of the country’s authoritarian leadership since the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The conspiracy realist were right all along.

(12-23-2022 09:17 PM)Garrettabc Wrote:  The conspiracy realist were right all along.

(12-23-2022 09:17 PM)Garrettabc Wrote:  The conspiracy realist were right all along.

(12-23-2022 06:53 PM)BigTigerMike Wrote:  

It is the new normal. And no, there will be no “reckoning” unless and until the consequences of the new normal begin to fall disproportionately upon groups that are deemed “marginalized” or “disadvantaged” by the media.