[Online Forum] The Resistible Rise of Proximity Tracing: Mobile App Surveillance in the Time of COVID-19

[TSTSA Contemporary European STS Online Forum]

The Resistible Rise of Proximity Tracing: Mobile App Surveillance in the Time of COVID-19

In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, a scientific and political controversy opposing conflicting approaches to automated contact tracing (i.e. proximity tracing) has erupted. Presented as an alternative to authoritarian tracking of citizens, tracing consists in identifying contacts between possible Covid-19 patients and notifying them. Historically carried out by health professionals, it is now presented as a technology-driven process where mobile phones record encrypted contacts between individuals, and notify them if someone is diagnosed Covid-positive. This solution has never proved efficient, arguably poses serious threats to individual privacy, and raises concerns in terms of social justice and equal access to healthcare. Nevertheless, political and corporate interests have played out in presenting it as the silver bullet in the fight of democratic countries against the pandemic. By focusing on the case of the French proximity tracing app (StopCovid), we will discuss centralized “sovereign” proximity tracing protocols, as well as decentralized (but Google-friendly) ones. Contact tracing mobile apps turn out to be an arena where diverging approaches to public health policies, individual autonomy, and the role of private companies in setting the agenda for nation states go head-to-head.

Time: June 23, 2020 7:30-9:00 pm (GMT+8)

Speaker: Antonio A. Casilli (Telecom Paris, Institut Polytechnique de Paris)

Antonio A. Casilli is a professor of sociology at Telecom Paris (Paris Grande École of Telecommunications, part of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris) and a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Institute on Innovation (i3), an institute of the French CNRS. He is also an associate researcher at the LACI-IIAC (Critical Interdisciplinary Anthropology Center, formerly Edgar Morin Centre, of the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences – EHESS, Paris) and a faculty fellow at the Nexa Center for Internet and Society (an institute of the Polytechnic University of Turin). For more information about Antonio A. Casilli: https://www.casilli.fr/

Organizer: Taiwan STS Association

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