In the midst of a global pandemic, which has stretched the mechanisms ofgovernance and public healthcare on a global scale, state surveillance -which was previously confined to a controlled role for monitoring an arrayof potential security threats – was used extensively to monitor publicactivity through a “track and trace” strategy, to contain the spread of thevirus, even after the health crisis recedes.
During this pandemic, individuals across the globe have compromised onelements of their privacy and physical mobility, in an effort to complywith government regulations to curb this contagion – and while these wereunprecedented times, there is a significant threat that these tools ofmass-surveillance will continually be in use, with little checks andbalances, especially in countries with weak digital security laws.Questions and concerns pertaining to the governance of online spaces arelikely to resurface.
According to a new Right to Privacy Index reportlinkbythe U.K based organization Verisk Maplecroft, with aggregated informationfrom a sample of 198 countries, “China and Pakistan are among the nationswith a worsening track record of violating citizens privacy”, Asia beingone of the highest-risk regions in the world for breaches of privacy,surveillance, and curbing political liberties – with Pakistan ranking 4th(behind North Korea), and China at 14th. The report highlights that “Asiais now the highest risk region in the Right to Privacy and Freedom ofOpinion and Expression indices”, and with the score steadily worsening overthe past four years, it can be anticipated that the region will become “theworld’s surveillance hotspot”, as unchecked and extreme mitigations ofdigital rights will become “a permanent fixture of state governance”.
Pakistan, at the apex of this crisis, adopted a comprehensive “track andtrace” strategy to monitor coronavirus patients, with tools that have beenroutinely used by the country’s intelligence agencies to track militantsand terrorist groups, in the absence of any significant data protection andprivacy laws, and a waning discourse on the notion of the effective (andnon-intrusive) governance of digital spaces. Even in India, Pakistan’simmediate neighbour, the government issued compulsory requirements for bothpublic and private employees to download a government virus trackingapplication, which the report cites as a significant warning and a badprecedent for businesses across Asia. The report also cited the Chinesegovernment’s decision to make a coronavirus tracking applicationpermanently mandatory, which is entirely reflective of the pandemic notonly influencing policy measures, but also forcefully renegotiating certainindividual liberties.
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As surveillance measures will continue to intensify in the region, evenwhile the virus could potentially recoil, there is a significant risk thatgovernments with untethered access to personal sensitive information, couldlead to authorities exploiting such data to silence dissenting voices andcurtail political opposition.
