Sputnik – April 28, 2020
According to a fresh survey, the vast majority of respondents are concerned about pandemic-induced surveillance measures continuing well after the outbreak ends.
Americans are increasingly worried about losing their privacy, as governments introduce monitoring measures to keep citizens safe from the further epidemic spread, research from CyberNews.com suggested, putting the number of concerned citizens at 79 percent.
The said respondents noted that they were either somewhat worried or to a great extent worried that intrusive tracking mechanisms forced upon them by the government would extend well beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the research involving 1,255 adults, the vast majority of Americans – a staggering 89 percent – “support or strongly support privacy rights.” When it comes to potentially sacrificing privacy rights for the sake of combating the spread of COVID-19, just over half (52%) go for “retaining personal privacy.”
Nearly two-third (65%) of those surveyed would not like the government to keep tabs on them via harvesting data or facial recognition measures, while less than a third (27%) would allow an app to use this kind of tracking.
The number is slightly bigger – up to 30% – for those who would allow an app to share their location details with others “if they were infected.”
“Even though the US has not yet introduced any new draconian surveillance measures to combat the spread of COVID-19,” the report concludes adding that “the results of this survey indicate that American adults are far from complacent when it comes to their privacy.”According to Johns Hopkins University estimates, the number of confirmed infection cases in the US has hit 1 million, with more than 57,500 corona-related deaths.