The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted life as we knew it. Lockdowns,
self-isolation and quarantine have become a normal part of everyday
life. Pandemic surveillance allows governments and corporations to
monitor and surveil the spread of the virus and to make sure citizens
follow the measures they put in place. This is evident in the massive,
unprecedented mobilization of public health data to contain and combat
the virus, and the ballooning of surveillance technologies such as
contact-tracing apps, facial recognition, and population tracking. This
can also be seen as a pandemic of surveillance.
In this timely book, David Lyon tracks the development of these methods,
examining different forms of pandemic surveillance, in health-related
and other areas, from countries around the world. He explores their
benefits and disadvantages, their legal status, and how they relate to
privacy protection, an ethics of care, and data justice. Questioning
whether this new culture of surveillance will become a permanent feature
of post-pandemic societies and the long-term negative effects this might
have on social inequalities and human freedoms, Pandemic Surveillance
highlights the magnitude of COVID-19-related surveillance expansion. The
book also underscores the urgent need for new policies relating to
surveillance and data justice in the twenty-first century.
