Civil liberties experts argue that governments turning to electronic surveillance to track COVID-19 opens the door to future abuses, as happened after 9/11
it's not just our peace of mind at risk, it's physical safety, protections for fairness & due process, & protections against discrimination & exploitation. injured dignity shouldn't be minimized but it's not the primary harm. https://www.wired.com/... https://twitter.com/... Evan Selinger / @evanselinger : When @sidneyfussell asked for my thoughts on enhancing surveillance to fight disease, I emphasized that creating Covid-19 response infrastructure incentivizes companies to find creative ways to benefit from mission creep. https://www.wired.com/... Sid Thee Fussell / @sidneyfussell : As a thought experiment, consider how aggregated location data could be useful when investigating an unexpected increase in new cases. But, this data mostly comes with dubious consent from Facebook/Google logins and weather apps, etc. Is all forgiven? https://twitter.com/... @nythealth : Disclosures of personal data about coronavirus patients around the world have drastically eroded people's ability to keep their health status private. https://www.nytimes.com/... PEN America / @penamerica : Surveillance of entire communities escalates around the world, with civil liberties experts citing concerns for the decline of personal privacy rights. https://www.nytimes.com/... Antonio Garca Martnez / @antoniogm : This piece is fair and correct. Barring a vaccine miracle, we're getting out of this mess via testing, masks, and contact-tracing, not by shutting down the economy and starving instead of coughing to death. What will suck is walking back the years of obtuse privacy ‘debate’. https://twitter.com/... @torproject : “ratcheting up surveillance to combat the pandemic now could permanently open the doors to more invasive forms of snooping later. It is a lesson Americans learned after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001...” https://www.nytimes.com/... .onion: https://www.nytimes3xbfgragh.onion/ ... @ragnarsmate : Even with the best of intentions, we must remember that no program is so permanent as a government program. Crises management without an eye to the future stands to erode civil liberties in ways we may not be able to easily roll back. https://www.nytimes.com/... @mims : A critical discussion right now and for the next, well, forever: How Surveillance Could Save Lives Amid a Public Health Crisis https://www.wired.com/... vs. As Coronavirus Surveillance Escalates, Personal Privacy Plummets https://www.nytimes.com/... Sid Thee Fussell / @sidneyfussell : Facial recognition, GPS data, geofencing — the nonstop tracking that sparked the “techlash” could actually help flatten the curve and save lives. Should we treat Big Tech's coronavirus responses differently from its other, suspect “public good” measures? https://www.wired.com/... April Glaser / @aprilaser : “In South Korea's highly wired society, however, internet mobs exploited patient data disclosed by the government site to identify people by name and hound them.” https://www.nytimes.com/... @nytimes : As the world races to contain the coronavirus, many countries are using digital surveillance. Tracking entire populations now could open the doors to more invasive tracking later. https://www.nytimes.com/... Albert Fox Cahn / @foxcahn : “We could so easily end up in a situation where we empower local, state or federal government to take measures in response to this pandemic that fundamentally change the scope of American civil rights,” said Albert Fox Cahn, exec. director of @STOPSpyingNY https://www.nytimes.com/... Rachel Thomas / @math_rachel : Ratcheting up surveillance to combat the pandemic now could permanently open the doors to more invasive forms of snooping later. It is a lesson Americans learned after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, civil liberties experts say. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... @fightfortheftr : More surveillance is not the answer. More surveillance is not the answer. More surveillance is not the answer. More surveillance is not the answer. More surveillance is not the answer. More surveillance is not the answer. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
In late March 2020, as governments reached for location data and phone tracking to contain outbreaks, civil liberties experts warned the tools would outlive the emergency — invoking the post-9/11 pattern where temporary security powers hardened into permanent infrastructure. The related coverage shows both sides of the argument taking shape within weeks: advocates in April conceded a data-driven response is compatible with individual rights if every step carries limits and justification, while trackers catalogued how quickly states moved to smartphone data, drones, facial recognition, and AI in the name of contact tracing.
What makes this story worth revisiting is that the warning did not stay hypothetical: by October, research across 65 countries found governments had exploited the pandemic to expand domestic surveillance and curtail internet freedom — mission creep arriving on schedule.
First-order effects
- Governments gain a ready-made legal and technical template for population tracking — GPS data, health apps, facial recognition — deployed under emergency authority with reduced oversight.
- Civil liberties groups such as @STOPSpyingNY (Albert Fox Cahn) shift from abstract privacy advocacy to active monitoring of pandemic-response contracts, while academics like Evan Selinger flag that building Covid-19 response infrastructure incentivizes companies to profit from mission creep.
Second-order effects
- Vendors who built pandemic-tracking tools acquire a commercial interest in keeping them running after the health emergency ends, turning emergency procurement into a lobbying constituency for retention.
- The legitimacy fight moves to conditions: advocates' framework of limits and per-step justification becomes the battleground for which data-driven measures survive scrutiny versus get struck down or sunset.
Third-order effects
- If the post-9/11 analogy holds, emergency surveillance authorities persist past their triggering crisis, normalizing continuous population monitoring as a standing government capability rather than an exception.
- The pattern pushes democracies toward codified guardrails — sunset clauses, purpose limitations, independent audit — because the alternative demonstrated across the 65-country research is unchecked expansion whenever a new emergency arrives.
The trend: Emergency-deployed surveillance is hardening into permanent state infrastructure, with each crisis expanding the baseline faster than oversight can contract it.