The emergence of technological tools to control Covid-19: a reinvention of panopticons

Abstract

In the following text, we intend to discuss the digital epidemiological surveillance caused by the pandemic by Covid-19. The concern with surveillance and privacy is not new, but in the current pandemic situation, the role of the State in electronic surveillance, added to that which has long been played by the Big Tech that corner the market are known, it reconsiders these concerns. To what extent can we, or not, consider that the measures adopted to control contagion by the new coronavirus and in response to the pandemic are part of what were the “disciplinary societies”, as Foucault conceptualized them? To contribute to the answer to this question, the empirical approach that we propose to present aims to characterize the current panorama of the governmental use of technological tools to control the pandemic, as well as the limitations that many applications have come to reveal. To this end, information was collected and systematized divulged in various media from different countries.