When the plague plague invaded Europe in the sixteenth century, people in London were told to stay in their homes for a month if someone living among them became ill, and every family was given a white stick known as the "plague baton" that any member of the family carried when he went out to buy their basic needs , And the stick served as a warning to people on the street that its bearer lived in a home with a plague patient, and therefore had to stay away.

After about four centuries passed and in the midst of the outbreak of the Corona virus emerging epidemic Covid-19, the recommendation was renewed for families in which there is a person infected with the virus, which is the necessity of staying at home, but in return, and instead of the “white plague baton,” modern technology provided many digital devices that countries use To monitor the movement of family members to reduce the spread of the virus in many regions of the world, according to a Bloomberg News report.

Today, there are monitoring systems that can monitor the movements of all the world's population thanks to the invisible signals from the smartphones we carry in our pockets.

There are also drones flying over the parks within the cities, which issue sound warnings to anyone who does not comply with the rules of social separation, to limit the spread of the new Corona.

Photographing facial features

There are also identification cameras by imaging the facial features in infrared, which can determine if a person's temperature is above the normal range, then digital applications can be installed in our mobile phones to warn us in the event that we approach a person with corona.

Although this technology offers exceptional capabilities that can help societies recover from the pandemic, intense debate has arisen about them in light of fears that pandemic governments can use their powers to monitor the private lives of citizens.

In this context, in April this year, more than 130 human rights organizations - including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International - published an open letter warning against expanding government oversight powers into societies under the pandemic.

"We do not mean that technology has no role in dealing with the pandemic, or that surveillance cannot be a right thing," said Rasha Abdel Rahim, deputy director of technology at Amnesty International. "But increased digital oversight needs to adhere to specific conditions if it is resorted to." ".

She added that any monitoring must be strictly commensurate with the limits of the need for it, and it is sufficient to collect the minimum required personal data, and only in relation to pandemic control measures, and moreover, the powers of monitoring related to the pandemic must be related to the period of the global epidemic, and that it ends automatically As soon as the crisis is over, the road to
its continuation is cut off indefinitely.

According to Bloomberg News, these fears are not theoretical or exaggerated. Some governments are already using the "Covid 19" crisis to strengthen their powers and take measures that can be abused to target opposition politicians.

In Cambodia, a new law has been passed giving broad powers to monitor communications, control the media and confiscate private property, and impose severe restrictions on freedom of movement, and human rights organizations say the Cambodian authorities are using the pandemic to cover the arrest of dissidents.

Double target

In Israel, the government allowed the intelligence service to use a system designed to fight terrorism to track the phones of millions of citizens during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, in light of the closure of immigration offices and border crossing points, the Israeli authorities have ordered Palestinians who live inside Israel to download an application to their smartphones to confirm their residency status.

According to the report of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, this application has a dual purpose, as it allows the Israeli army to track the movements of the Palestinians and view their communications and messages they receive on their cell phones.

Shushana Zubov, author of "The Age of Observer Capitalism" and a professor at Harvard Business School, American University, says the fundamental risks are that democratic nations tend toward authoritarian models in their efforts to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nevertheless, Shoshana Zubov’s view of the world after the end of the pandemic tends to be optimistic. She says, “I do not agree with saying that we are heading towards a future in which we are subject to strict control. There is something inevitable now, but this means that we have to be vigilant, and we must move forward and double. Bet on democracy as the way to overcome the pandemic with the least amount of sacrifice of rights and freedoms.