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Content type: Examples
The Atlantic’s COVID Tracking Project, in collaboration with the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, has begun gathering up-to-date race and ethnicity data relating to COVID-19 in the US. Nationwide, black people are dying at a rate 2.5 times higher than white people. Different counties in the same state may have vastly different breakdowns by race and ethnicity, and the result is reflected in the fact that there is little crossover between the list of most-infected counties and…
Content type: Examples
Knowledge Ecology International has received copies of a number of contracts it requested under the US Freedom of Information Act that were signed in 2020 by the US Department of Defense or the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to cover research on COVID-19 vaccines or therapeutics. Five use “Other Transaction Agreements” to weaken or eliminate safeguards such as Bayh-Dole (which provides standard patent clauses for federal funding agreements) and the Federal Acquisition…
Content type: Examples
A group of Democratic US Senators and Congressional Representatives have written to Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar asking for more transparency around the HHS Protect Now programme, which collects vast amounts of data, including coronavirus test results, from the CDC and state and local sources and analyses it using technology from Palantir. The letter asked whether any of the data gathered would be shared with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which Palantir has helped to…
Content type: Examples
Kenya’s Independent Policing Oversight Body reports that it received 87 complaints covering 31 incidents in which injuries were linked to the actions of police officers and 15 deaths between curfew’s imposition on March 27 and June 5. In April, Human Rights Watch accused the police of brutality in imposing the curfew from the beginning, including whipping, kicking, and teargassing people.
Publication: Guardian
Publication date: 2020-06-05
Content type: Examples
Thermal temperature scanners, software keystroke monitors, and wearable location trackers are proliferating in US workplaces, with the data they collect outside of any of the country's electronic privacy laws. Companies report that employers are being asked to form part of the front line of contact tracing for COVID-19 and share data on a wholly new level. Even before the pandemic, employers sought to keep employee data exempt from the CCPA; privacy activists eventually won a one-year…
Content type: Examples
Even though the scientific jury is still out on whether and how long post-COVID-19 immunity will last, proof of having recovered from the illness is an asset in renting out an apartment on Airbnb, US companies are beginning to develop an immunity passport for hotels, and the Chilean government is issuing “release certificates” to people who complete quarantine after testing positive. In Winston-Salem, North Carolina, doctors are reporting that they’re seeing people test positive after attending…
Content type: Examples
Many of the steps suggested in a draft programme for China-style mass surveillance in the US are being promoted and implemented as part of the government’s response to the pandemic, perhaps due to the overlap of membership between the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, the body that drafted the programme, and the advisory task forces charged with guiding the government’s plans to reopen the economy. The draft, obtained by EPIC in a FOIA request, is aimed at ensuring that…
Content type: Examples
The officials managing Florida’s 100-plus coronavirus test sites have asked the 1.3 million people tested so far for for names, social security numbers, dates of birth, and insurance information. Nearly 1,000 private labs process these tests, and dozens of contractor organisations collect swabs and deliver test results, some of them with no previous health care experience. There is little consistency about what information individuals are asked to provide, and there is no set vetting process…
Content type: Examples
US state and local authorities are using data from a host of location tracking companies, some of them little-known, such as X-Mode Social, Foursquare Labs, Cuebiq, Unacast, Phunware, and SafeGraph, to help them decide how and when to reopen. Many of these companies are part of the adtech industry and collect location data from unrelated apps to which users have given permission to access their location. Apple’s and Google’s refusal to allow contact tracing apps using their system to access…
Content type: Examples
The Delaware County of New Castle is participating in a pro-bono programme run by the Cambridge, Massachusetts start-up Biobot Analytics, which analyses sewage for the coronavirus in order to estimate the number of people infected in a particular area, hoping to use the results to make better health decisions. Wastewater epidemiology has been used in the past to combat polio. Also joining the Biobot programme are wastewater treatment plants in or near Denver, Honolulu, Indianapolis, Florida’s…
Content type: Examples
Concerns that contact tracing could expand to purposes beyond public health gained some weight when the Minnesota Department of Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington told press that law enforcement was using “contact tracing” to investigate protesters arrested after the murder of George Floyd. Minnesota public health authorities found that Harrington actually meant they were engaging in the normal process of law enforcement investigations, and not, as he had implied, using data from Covid-…
Content type: Examples
The controversial Israeli spyware company NSO Group's US arm, Westbridge, has been trying to pitch its phone hacking software to US law enforcement agencies such as the San Diego Police Department, particularly a tool called "Phantom", which the complany claims can overcome encryption, track geolocation, withstand a factory reset, monitor apps and voice and VOIP calls, and collect passwords.
Writer: Joseph Cox
Publication: Vice
Content type: Examples
Cameras repurposed as "fever-detecting" aren't designed for and are not very good at detecting infections, but businesses, airlines, major employers, and public officials are nonetheless reacting to the coronavirus pandemic by spending large sums to buy them without understanding their limitations. The systems can detect elevated skin temperatures, but aren't precise enough to be able to identify the cause. In addition, many people who develop COVID-19 don't have fevers. The scanners have not…
Content type: Examples
Among the regulations governing restaurants as the US State of Maine's moves into a phased reopening is a requirement to maintain customer records for contact tracing purposes, including one customer's name and contact information per party and those of the table's server. The regulations also recommend promoting contactless payment options.
Writer: State of Maine
Publication: State of Maine
Content type: Examples
In designing its Healthy Together contact tracing app, the US state of Utah opted for a GPS and Bluetooth-based design created by social media startup Twenty; it does not use the Google-Apple API. The goal is for the app to assist the 1,200 Utah Department of Health workers who are doing phone call-based contact tracing. Twenty believes the app's ability to store location and contact history over 14 days can cut the length of phone calls from one hour to 16 minutes. The Apple-Google platform…
Content type: Video
You can find out more about Haki na Sheria here: http://hakinasheria.org/
Find out more about double registration in Keren's piece "In Kenya, thousands left in limbo without ID cards" in CodaStory: https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/kenya-biometrics-double-registration/
Find out more about the Huduma Namba case on our website: https://privacyinternational.org/news-analysis/3350/why-huduma-namba-ruling-matters-future-digital-id-and-not-just-kenya
You can listen and…
Content type: Examples
Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, Jamaica, and Ecuador have all asked the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to screen migrants in detention for COVID-19 before deporting them. At least 85 deported Guatemalans have tested positive, accounting for about a fifth of all the cases reported in the country, and cases of infection have also been reported in deportees to Haiti, Mexico, and Colombia. In total, eight countries have reported positive COVID-19 cases among recent deportees,…
Content type: Examples
Contact tracing apps will only work effectively if people trust them and install them in sufficient numbers. Soon after its launch, however, the North Dakota contact tracing app people were already dropping it after posting complaints in the Google App store. In a survey of 798 Americans, researchers at Microsoft Research, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Zurich found that nearly half said they would not install a COVID-19 contact tracing app that has false negatives or could…
Content type: Examples
The best contact tracers in US history were a group of mid-20th century venereal disease investigators working for a programme at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention whose strategy eventually led to the eradication of smallpox in the 1970s. Talking to infected people and tracking down their vague descriptions of contacts at a time when VD was a source of shame was challenging; recruits were required to have a college degree, preferably in liberal arts, and a varied background of work…
Content type: Examples
Amazon has spent $10 million to buy 1,500 cameras to take the temperature of workers from the Chinese firm Zhejiang Dahua Technology Company even though the US previously blacklisted Dahua because it was alleged to have helped China detain and monitor the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities.
The cameras work by comparing a person’s radiation with a separate infrared calibration device and uses face detection technology to make sure it is looking for heat in the right part of the subjects…
Content type: Examples
The state of Utah gave the AI company Banjo real time access to state traffic cameras, CCTV, and public safety cameras, 911 emergency systems, location data for state-owned vehicles, and other data that the company says it's combining with information collected from social media, satellites, and various apps in order to detect anomalies in the real world and alert law enforcement to crimes as they are happening. The company claims its algorithm can do all this while stripping all personal data…
Content type: Examples
The controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI, which came to public attention for scraping billions of photos off social media sites to create a comprehensive facial recognition system, says it has offered to help US federal and three state agencies with contact tracing. The company claims its technology could use the cameras already in place to identify people in surveillance video in restaurants or stores where they may have come into contact with others who subsequently test…
Content type: Examples
In April, the US state of North Carolina's Dare County enacted a series of emergency declarations that establish checkpoints at all points where roads cross the county borders; travellers show an ID card with a Dare County address or a county-issued permit in order to enter the county. Dare County, which consists of barrier beaches and other islands on the Outer Banks of the coast, is served by only three roads in and out of the country, and all routes cross bridges or causeways. Because the…
Content type: Examples
From our partners from the Defenders Coalition: The civil society’s Police Reforms Working Group, comprised of twenty national human rights organisations, condemn the unnecessary and excessive use of force by Kenya Police Service officers yesterday at the Likoni Ferry Crossing, Mombasa. The police actions completely betrayed the specific responsibility bestowed upon them by the President; to facilitate orderly passage of commuters on the Likoni crossing.
Link to their reaction: https://…
Content type: Examples
A number of incidents in which Zoom events in education settings were disrupted led the New York City school district to ban the use of Zoom for remote learning.
Among the Zoombombing incidents: saboteurs inserted racist and anti-Semitic messages into a virtual graduation ceremony at Oklahoma City University, displayed child abuse images for several seconds during a Brecksville-Broadview Heights School District Board of Education meeting, and displayed inappropriate material in a class in…
Content type: Examples
At least four law enforcement agencies in the US - two in California, and one in each of Maryland and Texas - are using drones to communicate with homeless people about maintaining social distance because encampments are located in areas that are difficult to access and police do not have to visit in person. Critics complain that the move increases encampment dwellers' already-high distrust in government. Many of the drones are being donated by the China-based drone company DJI as part of the…
Content type: Examples
Hawaii governor David Ige has ordered all travellers to the island US state arriving between March 26 and May 31 to self-quarantine for 14 days. Violating the order is a criminal offence and subject to a $5,000 fine and up to a year's imprisonment. In addition, the Department of Transportation requires all travellers into Hawaii and (from April 1) between the Hawaiian islands to complete and sign a form giving their name, address, phone number, destination, and purpose of their travel.…
Content type: Examples
The automated facial recognition company Clearview AI has suggested to US federal and state authorities that its facial biometrics could leverage cameras already in place at gyms and retailers in order to identify individuals in the interests of contact tracing.
Simultaneously, the company is asking for a stay in a privacy lawsuit in federal court in Illinois under the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act. The company wants the case to be moved to the Southern District of New York, where…
Content type: Examples
To speed up daily temperature checks, Amazon has installed thermal cameras to screen workers for coronavirus symptoms in its warehouses around the world. Cases of COVID-19 have been reported at more than 50 of the company's US warehouses. Thermal cameras will also replace thermometers at staff entrances to many of Amazon's Whole Foods stores. Workers have claimed it is almost impossible to socially distance inside the warehouses.
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52356177
Writer:…