There has been a pattern of behavior, starting with the kind of “social credit” monitoring in China, that has spread to Russia and Europe. I have warned that signs of this are starting to show up in the US, and to be very careful because it is only a very short time before it comes here. Now it appears that such is coming to pass as Google is releasing personal data to officials, including in the US, for monitoring purposes to see if people are “self-quarantining” according to Silicon.co.uk.
Location data is being released by Google in 131 countries so officials can see if people are obeying self-isolating rules
Alphabet’s Google division has on Thursday published data for 131 countries that shows whether people are obeying self-isolating and quarantine rules.
The ‘Community Mobility Reports’ from the search engine giant showed whether visits to shops, parks and workplaces dropped in March, Reuters reported.
March is when many countries around the world brought in their lock-down rules, and readers can click here to see the Google reports on their particular country.
The Google data comes after surveillance firm NSO Group this week claimed it was in talks with governments around the world about using its tracking software, which is already being tested by some nation states.(source)
It does not matter what “privacy rules” are in place. Possession is 9/10ths of the law, as the saying goes, and if a major company has it, one can reasonably assume that said information will be used and sold under even questionably “legal” pretenses, especially in the case of an emergency.
Nothing that one has on a public server can ever be assumed to have a reasonable standard of privacy. This virus incident is only furthering this concept more among the public.