marktan4422
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https://www.change.org/p/singapore-...wearable-devices-for-covid-19-contact-tracing
Wilson Low started this petition to Singapore Government
The Government of the Republic of Singapore proposes that wearable devices be adopted for use by the general population in near-future efforts to reliably achieve contact tracing of persons that have recently come into contact with a Covid-19 infected person.
Minister-in-charge of the Smart Nation initiative, Vivian Balakrishnan, announced the proposal on June 5. He cited poor inter-operability of the existing Trace Together smartphone app across various brands of smartphones as well as the Government's subsequent non-compulsory usage stance as reasons for developing a wearable device.
Such a device, if proven to be successful in trials - and subsequently made available to everyone - would allow contact tracers to locate a person's whereabouts based on their proximity to other persons' phones, cell towers, or potentially their wearable devices themselves.
This will be done regardless of whether the person has a phone or not; regardless whether their phone is switched off or on; whether that person is within reception of a cell tower or not; and regardless whether their phone has wifi or Bluetooth switched off or on.
The only thing that stops this device from potentially being allowed to track citizens' movements 24/7 are: if the wearable device runs out of power; if a counter-measure device that broadcasts a jamming signal masking the device's whereabouts; or if the person chooses to live 'off the grid' in total isolation, away from others and outside of any smartphone/device effective range.
All that is stopping the Singapore Government from becoming a surveillance state is the advent and mandating the compulsory usage of such a wearable device. What comes next would be laws that state these devices must not be turned off/remain on a person at all times - thus sealing our fate as a police state.
Thus, we reject the development of this contact tracing device. We view its advent and subsequent implementation with great suspicion and indignation. The claims that such a device be implemented 'for the greater good' and for 'the safety and protection of all Singaporeans' are false and baseless. According to media reports, the non-successful adoption of the Trace Together app can be superceded by the next step that state-sanctioned technological advancements can offer: and this is it.
The Government looks to the Covid-19 pandemic as the perfect excuse to realise what it has always envisioned for us - this country's populace: to surveil us with impunity, to track us without any technological inhibitions, and maintain a form of movement monitoring on each of us at all times and places. And to do so by decreeing it compulsory for all law-abiding persons to become 'recipients'.
We - as free, independent, and lawful members of the public of Singapore - condemn the device's implementation as blatant infringements upon our rights to privacy, personal space, and freedom of movement. We reject the notion that the non-efficacy of the Trace Together initiative be superceded by a regime that could potentially require all members of the public (regardless of their age, susceptibility to disease, or health status) to give up these rights under fear - not of infection from Covid-19 - but of prosecution by the state.
Wilson Low started this petition to Singapore Government
The Government of the Republic of Singapore proposes that wearable devices be adopted for use by the general population in near-future efforts to reliably achieve contact tracing of persons that have recently come into contact with a Covid-19 infected person.
Minister-in-charge of the Smart Nation initiative, Vivian Balakrishnan, announced the proposal on June 5. He cited poor inter-operability of the existing Trace Together smartphone app across various brands of smartphones as well as the Government's subsequent non-compulsory usage stance as reasons for developing a wearable device.
Such a device, if proven to be successful in trials - and subsequently made available to everyone - would allow contact tracers to locate a person's whereabouts based on their proximity to other persons' phones, cell towers, or potentially their wearable devices themselves.
This will be done regardless of whether the person has a phone or not; regardless whether their phone is switched off or on; whether that person is within reception of a cell tower or not; and regardless whether their phone has wifi or Bluetooth switched off or on.
The only thing that stops this device from potentially being allowed to track citizens' movements 24/7 are: if the wearable device runs out of power; if a counter-measure device that broadcasts a jamming signal masking the device's whereabouts; or if the person chooses to live 'off the grid' in total isolation, away from others and outside of any smartphone/device effective range.
All that is stopping the Singapore Government from becoming a surveillance state is the advent and mandating the compulsory usage of such a wearable device. What comes next would be laws that state these devices must not be turned off/remain on a person at all times - thus sealing our fate as a police state.
Thus, we reject the development of this contact tracing device. We view its advent and subsequent implementation with great suspicion and indignation. The claims that such a device be implemented 'for the greater good' and for 'the safety and protection of all Singaporeans' are false and baseless. According to media reports, the non-successful adoption of the Trace Together app can be superceded by the next step that state-sanctioned technological advancements can offer: and this is it.
The Government looks to the Covid-19 pandemic as the perfect excuse to realise what it has always envisioned for us - this country's populace: to surveil us with impunity, to track us without any technological inhibitions, and maintain a form of movement monitoring on each of us at all times and places. And to do so by decreeing it compulsory for all law-abiding persons to become 'recipients'.
We - as free, independent, and lawful members of the public of Singapore - condemn the device's implementation as blatant infringements upon our rights to privacy, personal space, and freedom of movement. We reject the notion that the non-efficacy of the Trace Together initiative be superceded by a regime that could potentially require all members of the public (regardless of their age, susceptibility to disease, or health status) to give up these rights under fear - not of infection from Covid-19 - but of prosecution by the state.
