Coronavirus and mass surveillance: interview with Olivier Tesquet

Audio 31:52

By: Steven Jambot Follow | Simon Decreuze Follow

Is mass surveillance spreading across the planet as a result of the coronavirus pandemic? To discuss it, The Media Workshop received Olivier Tesquet, journalist at Télérama, specialist in digital issues.

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Olivier Tesquet has carefully observed surveillance devices around the world for the past ten years. It is a job that he started first at Owni , an online media dedicated to digital issues, and that he continues at Télérama .

His latest book, published in January 2020, is entitled "  On the trail - Survey on the new surveillance territories  " (Premier Parallel editions).

"  Before the pandemic, we were already seeing an acceleration in the deployment of a certain type of surveillance technology  ", such as facial recognition, especially for security issues related to the terrorist risk, explains Olivier Tesquet.

"  Today, with the pandemic, health has become the first freedom and it is an even more powerful lever than the terrorist risk for example  " which was invoked by governments to deploy certain surveillance technologies. “  Because of this pandemic, we have a fairly impressive, fairly dizzying acceleration in the development of these tools which, finally, right now, are being trivialized.  "

"We can have a real fear of the tools deployed in times of pandemic on an experimental basis," warns the journalist who believes that the "  addiction  " to these tools can make it "  very difficult to defeat them  ". 

An application like Stop-Covid launched in France against the Covid-19, a good idea?

"  Today no country has succeeded, thanks to an application, in containing the epidemic,  " recalls Olivier Tesquet, detailing the limits of the Trace Together application deployed in Singapore. According to him, "  we can ask the question of the need for an application  " like StopCovid, which is to be launched in early June in France. 

"  I have the impression that Stop-Covid has become an object of communication and a means for a minister to exist politically  ", with reference to the Secretary of State for Digital Cédric O. "  Stop-Covid has become a snake of sea. It sounds like an increasingly hazardous adventure (...) a kind of demonstration of a French know-how (...) a 100% Made in France application, except that it is not public health is political communication.  "

"  What I fear a little is the technological leap forward, where tools become a means of governing, come to replace a public policy  ", worries Olivier Tesquet . “ For example, instead of having a city policy, we're just going to put smart cameras in public space.  "

Coronavirus pandemic, a good time to ask questions about technology

"  We realize that we can all get sick, that we can all be subjected to measures restricting liberty, and suddenly the surveillance seems much more familiar,  " notes the journalist specialist on the subject.

Asked whether the Cnil (National Commission for Information Technology and Liberties) is playing its role in this period, Olivier Tesquet assures that "  we need the Cnil at the moment because anyway, it is the only authority independent that we have [in France] on these issues. ""  Then we see that the Council of State and the Constitutional Council can also take up these questions,  " he reassures himself.

The current period is conducive to a reflection on our uses of digital, agrees our guest. "  I want to think (...) that it may be the right time to think a little better collectively about the technology and the risks it can present.  "

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• Coronavirus
• Media
• Technologies
• New technologies
• France
• Digital

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