How is surveillance evolving during the COVID-19 crisis? What are the economic incentives behind it? How stackable are these different sorts of surveillance? Is the pandemic putting the panopticon under our skin?

In this fourth episode of the Big Brother Watch Podcast, Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch and host of this show, talks with technology and surveillance experts Evan Selinger, Professor of Philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology and co-author of ‘Re-engineering Humanity’, and Dr. Stephanie Hare, technology, politics and history researcher and broadcaster.

In particular, we talk about how thermal scanners are being used as an additional ingredient in the surveillance machinery and why we ought to be concerned.

Big Brother Watch is a UK civil liberties campaign group fighting for a free future. We’re a fiercely independent, diverse, non-partisan and non-profit group who work to roll back the surveillance state, defend free speech, and protect rights at a time of huge change.

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You can also watch the interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1eKQKrwicM

Show notes:

Big Brother Watch’s Emergency Powers & Civil Liberties Report, June 2020: https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Emergency-Powers-and-Civil-Liberties-Report-Big-Brother-Watch-June-2020.pdf

Big Brother Watch’s Emergency Powers & Civil Liberties Report, May 2020: https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Emergency-Powers-and-Civil-Liberties-Report-May-2020-Final.pdf

Digital Freedom Fund on Biosurveillance: https://medium.com/digital-freedom-fund/what-is-biosurveillance-c8bffe70d16f

The Rise of the Biosurveillance State, Jeremy Cliffe: https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2020/03/rise-bio-surveillance-state