Engl. transl.: Corona and surveillance

In June 2020, a new app landed on Danish smartphones. As in a number of other countries, the Danish authorities took the initiative to develop an app that allows citizens themselves to help stop the spread of COVID-19 in Denmark. The Smitte | stop app works as a voluntary digital tool that uses the phone's bluetooth technology to continuously register the user's location together with the other Smitte | stop users who are nearby. If a user is tested positive for COVID-19, he or she can register it with NemID in the app, which can then, based on the registered information, identify other users who have been close by. Via the app, these users are then notified that they have been exposed to the risk of infection and how to behave. It sounds like a really good and efficient model. But let's translate it into surveillance language: the authorities are developing a fine-grained network of contact tracing technology, of which we citizens are involved as carriers and which can be used to manage and control the population. A well-oiled cog for an already comprehensive, digital surveillance community. How did we get here?

Discussion of the surveillance issues in launching the volunteer, bluetooth Smitte/stop app to the Danish public