Some reading lest we forget the Covid tyranny we were subjected to for almost 3 long years

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/civil-liberties-report-police-pandemic-quebec-1.5625250

Majority of Canada's $13M in pandemic fines were issued in Quebec, report finds

Marginalized groups tended to bear the brunt of police and bylaw action

 Colin Perkel · The Canadian Press · Posted: Jun 24, 2020

 

Authorities in some provinces ramped up often arbitrary law enforcement to help curtail the COVID-19 pandemic rather than rely on a purely public health approach, according to a report released Wednesday.

The main problem, the report finds, is that marginalized or other vulnerable groups tended to bear the brunt of police and bylaw action.

"This report proves that we've got an ugly ticketing pandemic, replete with COVID carding and racial profiling, in central and eastern Canada," Michael Bryant, executive director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said in a statement.

"Somehow a public health crisis has been twisted into a public order crisis."

Provinces across the country issued emergency orders with hefty penalties for violations in March, including closures of public spaces and physical distancing measures. Ticketing soon followed.

In one example cited in the report, a man walking his dog in Ottawa was fined $880 for standing in the wrong place. A bylaw officer in the city also tackled a man walking through a park with his daughter. He ended up with a bruised lip and a fine of more than $2,000..............

 

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https://theccf.ca/release-documents-reveal-details-of-police-misuse-of-covid-19-database/

Documents reveal details of Ontario police misuse of COVID-19 database

The CCF :September 29, 2020

TORONTO: The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) is releasing a document obtained through Freedom of Information legislation that outline specific details of police services misuse of a COVID-19 database.

“This document reveals a shocking misuse of personal health information by police,” said CCF Litigation Director, Christine Van Geyn. “Police were caught using the COVID-19 database to look up names unrelated to active calls, to do wholesale postal code searches for COVID-19 cases, and to even do broad based searches outside officers’ own cities. There is no rationale for this abuse. We have filed a complaint with the Ontario Privacy Commissioner for violations of the Personal Health Information Protection Act, and with the Ontario Independent Police Review Director for officer misconduct.”

In a letter addressed to “All Chiefs of Police”, an official at the Solicitor General’s Office laid out the results of an audit of the use of the COVID-19 database by officers. In the letter, the Solicitor General’s Office stated that “many searches of the portal do not appear to be consistent with the ministry’s instructions or the restrictions on the use of the information subject to O. Reg. 120/20 set out in the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act.”...............

 

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https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/05/using-drones-fight-covid-19-slipperiest-all-slopes

 

 Using Drones to Fight COVID-19 is the Slipperiest of All Slopes

By Matthew Guariglia

May 5, 2020

 

As governments search in vain for a technological silver bullet that will contain COVID-19 and allow people to safely leave their homes, officials are increasingly turning to drones. Some have floated using them to enforce social distancing, break up or monitor places where gatherings of people are occurring, identify infected people with supposed “fever detecting” thermal imaging, or even assist in contact tracing by way of face recognition and mass surveillance.

Any current buy-up of drones would constitute a classic example of how law enforcement and other government agencies often use crises in order to justify the expenditures and negate the public backlash that comes along with buying surveillance equipment. For years, the LAPD, the NYPD, and other police departments across the country have been fighting the backlash from concerned residents over their acquisitions of surveillance drones. These drones present a particular threat to free speech and political participation. Police departments often deploy them above protests, large public gatherings, and on other occasions where people might practice their First Amendment-protected rights to speech, association, and assembly......

 

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-derbyshire-52055201

 

Coronavirus: Peak District drone police criticised for 'lockdown shaming'

27 March 2020

 

A force that released drone footage of people walking in the Peak District has been accused of "nanny policing".

Derbyshire Police filmed people in pairs rambling in the Curbar Edge area of the beauty spot on Wednesday.

Officers said travelling to remote areas for exercise did not count as "essential travel" as permitted under government lockdown rules.

UK civil liberties group Big Brother Watch branded the move "sinister" and "counter-productive".

The 90-second clip, shot by the force's drone unit, showed people walking their dogs and taking photos............

 

 

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8652566/

Abstract

Drones have been widely used by public authorities during the COVID‐19 pandemic for pandemic‐related problems. As an innovative tool with a wide range of potentialities, they have been deemed suitable for an exceptional situation marked by the persistence of social distance. Yet, the turn to new technology to solve complex problems is a political decision that has broad societal implications, especially in the context of declared states of emergency. In the article we argue that the extensive use of drones by national authorities during the COVID‐19 pandemic has generated a new socio‐technical assemblage of actors, technologies and practices. Building on the three main uses of drones as responses to specific pandemic‐related challenges (disinfection, delivery, and surveillance), we analyse the actors and the practices involved in this new socio‐technical assemblage. From the empirical material, we explore potential effects of drone uses on key issues such as the technology regulatory processes, public acceptance, and security and safety concerns.

Go to:

Short abstract

As new technologies become more advanced, the epistemic gap between technology developers, on the one hand, and technology users and regulators, on the other hand, widens, bringing along societal implications that are increasingly unnoticed.

Policy Implications

• Accelerating regulation to allow civilian drones to fly more in civilian airspace during the pandemic cannot reduce safety and privacy protection standards.
• As drone technology is continuously evolving and is potentially exposed to function creep and function expansion dynamics, its societal, ethical and legal implications should be continuously reviewed.
• The public and the civil society – and not just end‐users and developers – must be consulted and involved in the processes of regulating new technology and their integration in our societies.
• The social and political impacts of technology must be debated publicly and politically, as the reliance on technology to solve complex problems often has wide societal implications beyond the specific problem at stake.

The fight against the COVID‐19 pandemic has mobilized national resources of all types – human, material, political and financial – on a large scale worldwide......................

 

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