Long-term Prescription? Digital Surveillance is Here to Stay

Long-term Prescription? Digital Surveillance is Here to Stay

digital surveillance

covid-19

pandemic

privacy

human rights

surveillance capitalism

An emerging literature has shown concerns about the impact of thepandemic on the proliferation of digital surveillance. Contributing to thesedebates, in this paper we demonstrate how the pandemic facilitates digitalsurveillance in three ways: (1) By shifting everyday communication to digitalmeans it contributes to the generation of extensive amounts of datasusceptible to surveillance. (2) It motivates the development of new digitalsurveillance tools. (3) The pandemic serves as a perfect justification forgovernments to prolong digital surveillance. We provide empiricalanecdotes for these three effects by examining reports by the Global DigitalPolicy Incubator at Stanford University. Building on our argument, weconclude that we might be on the verge of a dangerous normalization ofdigital surveillance. Thus, we call on scholars to consider the full effects ofpublic health crises on politics and suggest scrutinizing sources of digitaldata and the complex relationships between the state, corporate actors,and the sub-contractors behind digital surveillance.

Maati, Ahmed

Švedkauskas, Žilvinas

Czech Journal of International Relations; Vol. 56 No. 4 (2021); 105-118

2788-2993

2788-2985

Institute of International Relations Prague

2021-12-01

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0

application/pdf

eng

info:eu-repo/semantics/article

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion