As a follow-up to the key note speech by Regina Surber of ICT4Peace on “Corona, Technology and Human Rights” on 31 March 2020 at SwissCognitive’s and AICapital’s ‘Virtual Conference: AI in Tumultous Times’, ICT4Peace is happy to now publish Regina’s paper called “CORONA PAN(DEM)IC: THE GATEWAY TO GLOBAL SURVEILLANCE?, which is, inter alia, based on the key note.
“The paper discusses the observation that the panic of the physical Covid-19 illness may let societies rush into a rise of global surveillance technologies. This precipitation is unprecedented, potentially path-dependent, infringing human rights, and, hence, dangerously unreflected. We must shift back from emotionality towards reason in order to live up to our duty to question national legislation and the course of action taken recently by Governments.
Also, if we agree on a civilian duty to reflect upon whether government measures could infringe human rights, our state of excessive emotionality must again be replaced by a state of reason – especially given emergency surveillance’s potential permanence. Put differently, not only the pandemic, but also the panic must stop. If not, we will be incapable to reasonably reflect on whether, and if so, how, to opt out of the path fear has been pushing us on to. Our solidarity must be grounded on facts – not on fear.” (Regina Surber).
The paper by Regina Surber can be found here.