Tech Solutions For Covid Have A Flipside

While making quarantine-enforcing apps and drones for lockdown surveillance, developers should be mindful of misuse by the state

- Shashank Srinivasan

INDIA IN TRANSITION

In December 2019, the Government of India enacted the Citizenship Amendment Act, which sparked widespread protests and counterprotests. Over the next few weeks, large crowds gathered in towns and cities across India, where police and paramilitary armed forces were deployed in big numbers. Violence erupted at some of the protest sites and people were injured and killed in the process. While questions remain as to which factions initiated the violence, it is unquestionable that in some cases, state forces were brutal in their approach and harmed Indian citizens.

Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic-linked lockdown across India and its accompanying enforcement by the state have resulted in numerous well-documented instances of police violence as well. Videos of shoppers, shopkeepers, and vendors being beaten by police forces are easy to find on social media, and reports have emerged of a man in Bengal who was beaten to death by the police for stepping out of his house to buy milk.

The state may have the monopoly on the legitimate use of force within its territory, but the violence on display, both in Kashmir and the North-East in the past few decades as well as across India in the past few months, is illegitimate, violates human rights, and is against the values embodied in the Indian Constitution. In this context, it seems obvious to suggest that civilian technologists should not be helping the state amplify its capacity to harm its own citizens.

Drone effect