Covid-19

Discussion Prompt: What existing national security legislation, new bulk analysis efforts, and emergency measures have different states deployed to curb the spread of Covid-19?

We are facing a global health emergency. Governments around the world have responded by making use of existing contingency plans in their public health and emergency laws but also turned to new measures to slow the spread of the pandemic. What changes to the legal framework, policy, and use of surveillance has Covid-19 triggered across different states? Are these changes necessary and what can be said about their democratic legitimacy? What legal and technical safeguards are being addressed or should become the norm to render surveillance-based government responses to the health crisis proportionate?

Covid-19: European rules for using personal data

How GDPR, the Data Protection Directive, and the European Convention on Human Rights guide what European states are allowed to do in the wake of the pandemic.

by Elspeth GuildQueen Mary University of London

Elspeth Guild is a Jean Monnet Professor ad personam in law at Queen Mary University of London and Emeritus Professor at Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands. She is also a partner at the London law firm Kingsley Napley. She regularly advises EU institutions on migration and asylum related matters and has written studies for the European Parliament on the European dimension of the refugee crisis 2016. She also advises the Council of Europe and has written two Issue Papers for the Commissioner for Human Rights, one on the right to leave a country the other on criminalization of migration. In 2009 her monograph Security and Migration in the 21st Century Polity, Cambridge, 2009 was published. In 2017 she co-edited with Stefanie Grant and Kees Groenendijk The Human Rights of Migrants in the 21st Century published with Routledge in the Focus series directed at the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.

Covid-19: Why states now need to consider self-restraint in the cyber domain

Current cyber operations of Chinese intelligence are hurting Beijing’s global leadership project.

by Alexandra PaulusNon-Resident Fellow for International Cybersecurity Policy, Stiftung Neue Verantwortung

Alexandra Paulus is non-resident fellow for international cyber security policy at the German tech policy think tank Stiftung Neue Verantwortung. She currently pursues her PhD in International Relations at Chemnitz University of Technology in Germany. Her research explores how regional powers shape the construction of norms for responsible state behavior in cyberspace, focusing on Brazil and Turkey. Before commencing her doctoral degree, Alexandra was deputy head of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Brazil office. Her further work experience includes the German Bundestag, the private sector, and Latin American NGOs. She is an active member of Women in International Security Germany.

Staring down the securocrats

In a rare encouragement for public oversight, South Africa has indicated to use location data responsibly in the fight against Covid-19.

by Jane DuncanProfessor, Department of Journalism, Film and Television, University of Johannesburg

Jane Duncan is a professor of Journalism, Film and Television. She is author of ‘Stopping the Spies: Constructing and Resisting the Surveillance State in South Africa’ (Wits University Press, 2018).

This window of opportunism

China's new surveillance reality mustn't change what Europe considers a reasonable invasion of privacy in tackling Covid-19.

by Jan-David Franke(former) Editor, about:intel

Jan-David is former editor of about:intel. Based at Stiftung Neue Verantwortung in Berlin, he is interested in digital rights, democratic intelligence governance, and the intersection of democracy and media in the public sphere. Before joining Stiftung Neue Verantwortung and building about:intel, he worked as an investigative reporter and editor for the Bangkok Post. Jan-David holds an M.Phil. in International Relations from the University of Oxford and a B.A. in Integrated Social Sciences from Jacobs University Bremen and the University of Edinburgh.

Containing Covid-19: countries leverage communications surveillance data

How the UK compares to the European, Israeli, South Korean, and Singapore models.

by Javier RuizPolicy Director, Open Rights Group

Javier Ruiz is the Policy Director at the UK-based advocacy organisation Open Rights Group. His work covers a broad range of digital rights areas such as state surveillance, transparency, privacy and ethics. He is a member of the UK Government's Expert Advisory Group on Digital Trade and is available for work on a consultancy basis.