You’re Being Tracked: Pandemic Capitalism

Disaster brings change. We discuss surveillance and public health during Covid-19. These days, it’s not only governments capturing raw data about us. A public health vacuum left by governments over decades is being filled by tech companies, which have stepped up surveillance, says Martin French, a sociologist and surveillance expert at the University of Concordia in Montreal.

Time Markers (mins: sec)

• 00:09 – news clips
• 1:23 – overview of episode
  
• 3:23 – links between public health, epidemiology and surveillance
  
• 4:16 – differences between surveillance and epidemiology
• 6:00 – how do contact tracing apps work?
• 8:33 – dangers of contact tracing apps
• 8:50 – what is surveillance capitalism?
• 12:08 – apps cement power by getting more people online
• 14:07 – what is disaster capitalism?
• 16:38 – disaster capitalism during COVID-19
• 17:25 – lack of public health investment in India
• 18:00 – links between surveillance and bias
• 19:00 – epidemiology and its unintended consequences