LETTER | Surrendering our privacy during a pandemic

LETTER | Covid19, which originated from the city of Wuhan, China, took a mere matter of months to intrude borders of countries around the world, even causing shutdowns of their economy. 

Governments have then deplored different strategies and tools in the hope to contain the disease, ranging from implementing movement control orders, as seen in Malaysia, to complete lockdown as seen in Italy.

While the types and degrees of measures vary from country to country, most, if not all, countries have relied on technological tools in combatting the disease. In Malaysia, that included thermo-screening at airports, drones to monitor high-risk locations, government-sponsored public service announcements, and so on.

At the citizens' level, Malaysians have also resorted to technological tools to cope with life under quarantine. For example, Grab Food for food deliveries, Facebook and Twitter for social networking and access to information, as well as Zoom and Skype for work meetings.

While a change in the way we work, socialise and even govern, seems inevitable and purely a natural course of events due to the unnatural times we live in, our right to privacy may be unknowingly eroded due to these changes and adoption of technological tools.

This article seeks to highlight a few of them and to remind us to be vigilant.

Contact tracing

Due to the highly contagious nature of the disease, contact tracing is a crucial part of the containment and eradication efforts against the virus.

It is imperative for medical officers to identify who a positive patient has been in contact with and track these people down, test them, and isolate them before they spread it to more people.

To achieve this, the traditional method has been through interviewing the patient. For example, asking him to recall where he has been and who he has had contact with. Thereafter, the people who potentially were exposed would be informed, tested and also quarantined.

However, the efficiency of this method relies on the ability of the patient to recall, and more importantly his or her honesty.

In Malaysia, sadly, there have been cases of patients lying about their travel history and potential exposures to other Covid-19 patients, to avoid quarantine and legal consequences. By the time they confess, many more people may have been exposed to the disease including medical officers who examined them.

In light of the shortcomings, countries may be tempted or pressured, to explore other methods of contact tracing, including relying on technological tools.

One example is the TraceTogether app in Singapore and the contact tracing platform being jointly worked on by Google and Apple. 

At this juncture, these apps and platforms have been announced to be purely “opt-in” and not mandatory, but the catch-22 of this is that these tracking technologies will not be effective if there is no high percentage of adoption by the public.

Thus, while at this moment it requires the consent of the citizen, it is not farfetched to think that the government may eventually force its people to adopt and use these tools.

Worst case scenario, governments forcing tech and phone companies to turn on the location tracking features on our phones, so that our location can be identified and tracked for these contact tracing applications, or even beyond that, ie monitoring our movement and compliance to the movement control orders.

While this seems to be an effective way to track down potential victims of the disease and thereby expedite isolation efforts, it would be a serious violation of a citizen’s privacy, particularly if consent is not given.

Furthermore, such exercise runs the risk of becoming a tool of state surveillance accessible anytime by the government. Perhaps, even after the disease has subsided, the government, having tasted the power it hones, would continue to use this technology to track the movement of its people in the name of security.

This will, amongst others, strongly infringe on our right to privacy and freedom of expression. For example, protestors may fear to attend peaceful protests as they can be easily identified, tracked down, and eventually prosecuted.

Alternatively, employers may also obligate their employees to install such apps and insist to check the employee’s past travels and records for any symptoms, before allowing the employee to resume work. Again, this is an intrusion of an employee’s privacy especially when it involves the employee’s freedom of movement outside of working hours.

If one’s livelihood is subject to the use of these apps, then even if it is not mandated by law, it leaves us no choice but to accept it.

Use of drones

Similarly, the use of drones should also be regulated by law. Law enforcers should not be given a freehand to use such technology in the guise of monitoring observation of the lockdown.

This is because if abused, the drones can be yet another tool for state surveillance and even direct intrusion of our personal space.

Similarly, such usage should end when the pandemic is over, and not allowed unless it is provided by law, for a legitimate purpose, necessary, and proportionate.

Zoom scandal

Thirdly, there are also privacy concerns due to our behaviour during the lockdown.

Zoom, for example, witnessed a huge spike in usage since countries entered into lockdowns. Its easy-to-use, convenient, and smooth transmission design has led it to become the preferred choice for teleconferences, webinars, and online meetings.

However, it was not long until privacy and security concerns popped up from the usage of the application. Incidents such as “Zoombombing” in which hackers infiltrate video meetings to shout racial slurs, threats, sharing porn and so on, happened frequently.

This is because Zoom meetings can be accessed by a short number-based URL, which can easily be generated and guessed by hackers.

Furthermore, the security concern with Zoom is also exacerbated by the fact that Zoom does not have end-to-end encryption, and therefore communication on that platform is susceptible to third party interception.

Therefore, meetings discussing highly confidential material, whether involving trade secret or clients’ information, are highly discouraged from being conducted on that application. Multiple companies, such as Tesla, have also banned their employees from using it.

While Zoom has come out to address the matter and promised to rectify these security and privacy concerns, this nevertheless serves as a wakeup call that we should always be vigilant when adopting a new technological tool.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, while we appreciate the government’s effort in tackling the pandemic, we must continue to stay vigilant and steadfast in defending our rights as pre-Covid-19 days.

We should also be cautious when adopting new tools, despite our eagerness to use them to cope with life under quarantine.

We must remember that our right to privacy and our right to our personal data are not suspended during this crisis, just like our constitutional rights and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are not suspended during this period.

While we are desperate to have this virus eradicated and resume our normal lives, we should not overlook the potential erosion of our rights in the process, else we may not even have our “normal lives” to return to. 

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

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