Private Firms Empower Employers to Spy on Workers in Order to Enforce Coronavirus Mandates
Shane Trejo
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Firms in the United States and the United Kingdom are currently developing state-of-the-art Big Brother technology that will allow private employers to track the movement of their workers under the guise of stopping coronavirus from spreading in the workplace.
Some firms are working on cell phone apps that would trace every single movement that a worker makes on the job. These apps could theoretically stop the spread of coronavirus by figuring out exactly who an infected person interacted with, and it could allow surfaces that the infected individual was around to be properly sterilized.
While the technology could have many practical uses, it also opens the door to Orwellian surveillance, particularly if private employers are forced to monitor their workers with these apps in order to remain in business.
Attorney Jena Valdetero, who works for the legal firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner in London, believes that these apps are “open to abuse” unless the government is willing to institute strong protections for privacy rights.
“It’s about transparency, accountability, data security and data minimization – not collecting more than you need,” she said.
One of the corporations vying to create the app, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), has admitted that the technology could not work effectively without widespread compliance. After it is developed, it will only be a matter of time before power-hungry bureaucrats are calling for the app to be mandatory for public health purposes in the age of the pandemic.
“You really need a majority of people to do this,” said Rob Mesirow, leader of PwC’s connected solutions practice. “US Businesses are going to have to [tell employees]: If you’re going to come back to the work environment, you need this app on your phone.”
A tech start-up operating out of Pennsylvania has an even more invasive solution than what PwC is cooking up. Microshare is working on a system they call Universal Contact Tracing, which would use key rings, badges, or wristbands to track an individual’s movements through Bluetooth technology.
Microshare wants to collect data on every individual with their devices and store it in a “secure database that is searchable and auditable for historic patterns.” They hope that their technology can be used in places like prisons, schools and hospitals where cell phones are either banned or difficult to carry, so that no worker is safe from Big Brother patrolling their every move.
In addition, Apple and Google are teaming up to share the contact tracing data from millions of people between their operating systems through Bluetooth. All the barriers previously in place that were protecting electronic data and privacy rights are being removed due to the coronavirus pandemic and mass hysteria it has caused.
Civil liberties advocates have been crying foul at these developments throughout the crisis, as heavy-handed government official use the panic to usurp freedoms at breakneck speed.
“My concern is that out of desperation we will turn to technology and put in place a massive surveillance apparatus at a tangible loss to civil liberties that doesn’t even accomplish the goals it sets out to in terms of saving human lives and healing the economy,” said Ryan Calo, a University of Washington law professor with a special focus on cybersecurity matters.
“We need to be responsive to this crisis now, but we also need to be thinking about how this data will be used in the future. Once this data is collected the only thing that really constrains how it’s used are laws and policies,” said Jennifer Granick, the surveillance and cybersecurity counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.
The Brave New World is here, and the notion of privacy is being lost amidst the frenzied rush toward authoritarianism. Globalists like Bill Gates could not have designed a better crisis than the coronavirus pandemic to further their aims.
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