Key indicator — Governmental power: Is the pandemic a threat to democracy?

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A couple of weeks ago I got a little paranoid, I had a bit of a cough and a sore throat and I immediately thought it was COVID-19. I called the national healthcare service and they told me to stay at home. “Do not leave the house, you have to be completely isolated” the nurse said, in a threatening tone, over the phone.

As someone with authority issues, who hates to be told what to do, I freaked out a little. I had the weirdest dreams that night. The government had set up cameras all over my apartment and a deafening alarm would go off every time I tried to leave the house. At one point, I thought I was living in Orwell’s 1984 trying to escape a creepy surveillance state.

The test came back negative the next day and I breathed a sigh of relief. But this whole situation made me think about how much control over our lives we’ve given up since the pandemic started. All around the world, governments have imposed quarantines, closed borders, and have been testing and tracking us to contain the infection.

And we’re all being told this is for our own good, that these are just small sacrifices we have to make to contain the virus. But how much power are we willing to give to governments and high tech giants? Will this be temporary or are we setting a precedent? Will this be a threat to democracy?

Looking at the answers so far, on Transformative Times’ first speculative study (which you can still participate in here), we can see that most people expect a controlling and powerful government in the future:

• 56.6% feel that the government will have more centralized power and will exercise more control over our daily lives.
• 36.9% think that the government will harness technology to drastically increase civic engagement and democratic participation.

And some participants even mentioned the role of government in their 2025 predictions:

• “Government stripped out human rights.”
• “More discussions and citizen involvement in government decisions.”

So, what out there gives us some clues?

1. Drastic times call for drastic measures

We’re often told that drastic times call for drastic measures. And we know we’re facing a set of unprecedented obstacles with this pandemic.

But what’s happening all around the world is a little daunting. It looks like all the testing, preparation, and medical equipment are not enough to deal with this crisis. Governments have engaged in invasive methods, such as tracking apps, facial recognition technology, using cell phone information, tracing credit card transactions, video footage, and public posting of detailed information of those infected.

However, what we seem to forget in the midst of all this chaos, is that these methods are violating some of our rights: the right to privacy, the right to be forgotten, freedom of movement, etc.

But do governments have a choice? And how is this affecting our lives?

2. More afraid of being blamed than dying of the virus

The South Korean government has often been praised for how it managed to control the spread of the COVID-19 disease. But at what cost?

South Korea’s extensive testing program has often been credited for the country’s success but that’s not the only reason. Surveillance technology has been massively used across the country to track people and identify possible cases. Benefiting from an infrastructure that was already in place, the South Korean government has been using three main methods to control its population:

1. CCTV cameras: In 2014, South Korean cities had over 8 million CCTV cameras and now they’re being used to identify people who have been in contact with COVID-19 patients.
2. Bank cards: South Korea has the highest proportion of cashless transactions in the world, and now they’re tracking these transactions to draw a card user’s movements on the map.
3. Mobile phones: are being used to track people’s locations and given the fact that phone companies require all customers to provide their IDs it’s easy to track nearly everyone in the country.

However, the problem is that this information is not only being used by the government but part of it is also being made public. South Koreans have been receiving alerts on their phones, every day, telling them where an infected person has been and whether they may have crossed paths. No names or addresses are given, of course, but it’s not that difficult to identify people — some people have even concluded that two of the infected were having an affair based on this information.

This obviously raises some ethical issues and shows how harmful this method can be for our mental health.

A research team at Seoul National University’s Graduate School of Public Health found that South Koreans fear more the “criticism and further damage they may suffer from being infected” than having the virus. Some people who were infected by the virus have also suffered from high levels of anxiety and sleep deprivation because of this exposure and consequent social pressure.

3. The perfect excuse for authoritarian regimes

Now, these methods of control can be particularly threatening in authoritarian regimes. If the government can restrict your movement and track your every move they can also use this data for further censorship and repression.

For example, in Kazakhstan, a country known for human rights violations, the government has been using facial recognition technologies and a video camera system to catch and fine citizens who violate quarantine restrictions. Their Ministry of Health is also developing a mobile application called Smart Astana to track the movement of citizens who are in quarantine.

The problem is that the use of these technologies presents a high risk of data abuse and manipulation by the authorities. In Kazakhstan, new legislation prohibited photo and video recordings in medical institutions and quarantine facilities, and activists and journalists are being prosecuted.

4. The problem of public-private partnerships

Naomi Klein, author of “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”, has often talked about how the exploitation of national crises can be used to establish controversial and questionable policies.

In a recent article for The Intercept, Klein wrote about how the world is re-imagining a post-COVID reality:

“This is a future in which, for the privileged, almost everything is home delivered, either virtually via streaming and cloud technology, or physically via driverless vehicle or drone, then screen “shared” on a mediated platform. It’s a future that employs far fewer teachers, doctors, and drivers. It accepts no cash or credit cards (under the guise of virus control) and has skeletal mass transit and far less live art. It’s a future that claims to be run on “artificial intelligence” but is actually held together by tens of millions of anonymous workers tucked away in warehouses, data centers, content moderation mills, electronic sweatshops, lithium mines, industrial farms, meat-processing plants, and prisons, where they are left unprotected from disease and hyper-exploitation. It’s a future in which our every move, our every word, our every relationship is trackable, traceable, and data-mineable by unprecedented collaborations between government and tech giants.”

Part of the problem, of course, is that this reality depends on a collaboration between the government and private companies where public services, such as schools, hospitals, police, and the military, are all outsourced to private tech companies, who are not held accountable by the same ethical and democratic standards.

5. People have the power

We thought the 21st century was going to be all about democratization and free access to knowledge. But instead, we have kept building an economic system that often puts its own interests ahead of ours, using technology and our personal data to its benefit, while exacerbating the inequities of the system.

And it’s not that technology is good or evil, it’s how we choose to use it that determines how we’re going to live our lives and how society will evolve. But those who get to make the decisions, and develop these new technologies that have so much impact in our lives need to be held accountable.

We don’t have to fall into the trap of surveillance just because we’re going through a collective crisis. People need to raise their concerns and ask questions.

But drawing the line between what we’re willing to accept, given our current challenge, and what we’re not is not easy. I just wish this didn’t keep me awake at night.