Aren’t you glad we don’t live under communism? Not just the dead hand of the government hanging over every business, dictating which can trade and which can’t, who is allowed to work and who isn’t… hang on…
Still, at least we still have freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. No-one’s going to arrest you for holding a peaceful, legal protest.
Um…
Well, at least we don’t have China’s Orwellian “social credit” credit system, where the government spies on your every move and assigns a “score” based on your personal activities.
Patent and trademark attorneys Dr. Gal Ehrlich and Maier Fenster of Ehrlich & Fenster recently had a US patent approved for a technology that aims to surveil people via their digital activity, give them a score that defines “the potential level of super-spreading activity of each individual,” and then vaccinate people based on this score.
The patent proposes collecting a wide range of personal information from sources such as mobile devices, apps, social media web browsing records, payment records, medical records, employment records, the government, and surveillance cameras.
Goddammit.
The social media sphere went (rightly) nuts at news that some Australian state governments were trialling “home quarantine apps” that randomly pinged the user, who then had to send a face photo and geolocation data, lest the goon squad come kicking down the door.
But even the most dictatorial Australian state premier has nothing on the sinister reach of this technology. It will potentially collect data on everything from location and facial recognition to the “ventilation rate” of the places people visit. It will also listen in harder than Jeff Bezos hearing someone say, “Siri, play some sexy music…”
It will also determine if you’re using public transport, by using not only geolocation, but “regular start-stop movement that matches a public transportation profile”. It’ll also listen for running water, or detect movement of a smart watch, to check if you’re washing your hands (hat tip: lonely singles best take off that smart watch before, well, you know). It’ll also make the Countdown Karens redundant by peeking through your phone to see if you’re wearing a mask.
Once the data has been gathered, the technology outlined in the patent analyzes the data and assigns a “score” to their electronic device. It suggests using this score to predict the “the potential level of super-spreading activity of each individual” and recommends “vaccinating according to score.”
Not only does the patent suggest mass electronic surveillance of people to create a social credit style score that determines when they should be vaccinated but it also proposes that the technology could be deployed as part of a “dedicated mandatory app” where “the government may order the citizens to install a dedicated application.”
If all that isn’t creepy and Orwellian and enough, get this:
“In some embodiments, subjects that are prone to frequent religious or secular events, like in a synagogue, a church or a mosque or a dancing venue, where the people are in close proximity to each other, and talk, pray, sing and/or breathe deeply and/or mingle more, will receive a higher score (e.g., for such a contact event) than those who do not frequent religious events,” the patent adds.
Reclaim the Net
I wonder if it will assign you a score for forced organ-harvesting, while it’s at it?
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