Daily Times

To go anywhere in Singapore these days, Joni Sng needs mobile phone apps and other technologies: a QR code to enter shops, a digital map to see how crowded a mall or park is, and a tracker to show if she was near someone infected with the coronavirus.

For the roughly 5.6 million people in Singapore, these actions are routine as the government eases restrictions placed to contain the spread of the disease.

“The apps are quite convenient and easy to use, and I feel a little safer knowing that everyone else is also using them,” Sng, a videographer, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“It has become very natural to click on the apps while going somewhere, just like wearing a mask,” she said.

Singapore, along with Taiwan, South Korea and China, was quick to embrace technology to map the coronavirus outbreak early on with contact tracing, robots and drones. Now, countries and businesses are mandating technologies as people return to work and begin to travel, with apps, scanners, check-in systems, and so-called immunity passports.

These are particularly needed in big cities that tend to be more densely populated, with more points of contact for the population, ranging from public transit to bars and restaurants.

“As Singapore restarts its economy, data-driven tech solutions will play a crucial role in helping the nation safely and successfully get back on its feet,” Singapore’s Government Technology Agency said in a statement last week.

HARM’S WAY

COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, has infected more than 10 million people worldwide and killed over 500,000, pushing governments and companies to innovate quickly on everything from quarantines to ventilators.

Many have turned to technologies based on big data, such as facial recognition software, that have raised fears of surveillance and privacy risks, but which authorities say are needed to track the disease and keep people safe.

China’s health code app was among the first off the block, showing whether a user is symptom-free in order to take the subway or check into a hotel.

In India, authorities have made the contact-tracing mobile app Aarogya Setu mandatory for everything from taking public transit and boarding flights to going to work. But these tools exclude vulnerable and marginalised populations, including those without smartphones, said Malavika Jayaram, executive director of the Digital Asia Hub think tank.

“When tools that are supposedly enabling exclude those without the right devices, the same technology that opens doors for some, closes them for others, and can serve as a barrier, not a leveller,” she said. “This raises the risk of the digital divide turning into a new sort of ‘privacy divide’,” she said. “Those with new smartphones can stay safe, remain social and return to a semblance of normal life. Those with feature phones will be barred from spaces and activities, or be unduly surveilled in order to participate in society.” In some cases, lives are at stake.

Dozens of people are stranded between warring groups in eastern Ukraine because the government requires them to download a coronavirus tracking app, and is denying entry to anyone who doesn’t have a smartphone, according to Human Rights Watch.