South Australia has beguna trialof a new COVID app to monitor arrivals into the state.
Victoria too has announced impending technologically supported home quarantine, though details remain unclear.
Home quarantine will also eventually beavailable for international arrivals, according to Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Location tracking and facial recognition
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A similarhome-quarantine appis already in use for arrivals into WA, andin some cases the Northern Territory.
Both apps use geolocation and facial recognition software to track and identify those in quarantine.
Users are required to prove they are at home when randomly prompted by the program.
In SA, you have 15 minutes to get the face recognition software to verify youre still at home.
In WA, it is more of a race.
You have just 5 minutes before you risk a knock on the door from the police.
Another difference is that the SA app is opt-in.
The WA app is already mandatory for arrivals from high risk areas like Victoria.
For extreme risk areas like NSW, its straight into a quarantine hotel.
There are many reasons to be concerned about home-quarantine apps.
First, theyll likely be much easier to hack than ankle tags.
Second, facial recognition software is often flawed and is frequently biased against people of color and against women.
The documentaryCoded Biasdoes a great job unpicking these biases.
With COVID check-in apps, we were promised the data would only be used for public health purposes.
But police forces around Australia haveaccessed this information for other ends on at least six occasions.
This severely undermines the publics confidence and use of such apps.
Only some states have retrospectively introduced legislation to provide such protections.
To provide access to welfare?
What Orwellian world will this take us to?
Facial recognition is a technology that is dangerous if it doesnt work (as is often the case).
And dangerous if it does.
It changes the speed, scale and cost of surveillance.
You are no longer anonymous when you go out to the shops.
Or when you protest about Black lives mattering or the climate emergency.
I never thought Id say this but, all in all, I think Id prefer an ankle tag.
