Contact Tracing: Emergency Measure or Permanent Surveillance?

Contact tracing promises better monitoring and control of Coronavirus. But it might also gives Government unprecedented totalitarian powers — at least in large parts of the west.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has given us all an insight into what a Big Government, 21st Century Police State looks like — choppers constantly hovering above, patrol vehicles roaming the streets, people being fined and pulled over for pursuing non-essential activities.

The rollout — and imminent rollout, depending on where you live — of contact tracing has heightened fears that the aforementioned Orwellian powers will be further strengthened, driving libertarians to shake their fists in rabid disapproval.

Government Surveillance or Citizen Empowerment?

As Yuval Noah Harari put it in a recent Financial Times article, a choice humanity now faces is that between totalitarian surveillance and citizen empowerment.

There are of course benefits to surveillance. But the waters get a little murky when you consider the speed at which surveillance technology is developing.

A hypothetical system that could track biological markers such as body temperature, heart-rate and even emotion, might help pinpoint carriers of and…