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Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

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Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#121

Post by seanmcdirmid »

throwawayfear wrote: post #50
threeseed wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not being forced to do this. You can instead spend 2 weeks locked up in a hotel at your expense.

What kind of insanity have we collectively tolerated that “you can pay to be locked up in a ‘hotel’ tor two weeks” is seen as some kind of evidence that there is no compulsion? That’s like saying people aren’t forced to vaccinate since you don’t “need” to work at that particular job and you don’t “need” to exercise in a gym or watch a movie in a theater. Everything in history shows the slope is slippery. They will pa…

If you decided to travel during the quarantine, you already agreed to this. If you were already stuck out of country when the quarantines were added, then you have a point. However, it makes sense if they want to control transmission and either lack vaccines or have a bunch of people who don’t want to get vaccinated.

> It’s a blatant power grab. They want to spy on you and track you. They don’t care about your health.

That sounds like a conspiracy theory.

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#122

Post by dane-pgp »

throwawayfear wrote: post #60
hug wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Do you consider people with immunity from past infections to be antivaxers? https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-on... Do you believe covid is dangerous enough to justify turning Australia into a totalitarian regime where you need to show papers to go anywhere and have constant surveillance even in your own home? Did you know they’re even dangling how many people can visit your home as a carrot?…

> build the systems of your own enslavement.

That reminds me of an old web-based puzzle game, where you had to carry around CCTV cameras to make sure you are always being recorded.

At one point, the protagonist, in a moment of self-awareness, says something very profound that has stuck with me ever since: "If I am complicit in my own surveillance, does that mean I'm hiding from myself?"

Can anyone remember the name of this game?

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#123

Post by FridgeSeal »

throwawayfear wrote: post #108
jrobe234 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keep in mind you are writing this in defense of a gov that presumes itself to be in charge of how many people you can have over. Source: https://theconversation.com/vaccine-passports-are-coming-to- ... “NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian yesterday announced freedoms for fully vaccinated people once 70% of the state’s eligible population are double dosed. These include being able to go to hospitality venues, hairdresser…

My mistake. Are they not unified into a single Australian government? I'm not Australian, I'm observing from across the pond. More importantly though, that distinction does little to make it feel more right. What controls exist to keep the idiocy contained to only one part of Australia? How do you know they won't make that the policy everywhere? Could that happen?

There is a federal government, but these articles (OP and above link) are talking about the South Australian and New South Wales state governments respectively.

> How do you know they won't make that the policy everywhere? Could that happen?

This would require the state governments to collectively agree on something (unlikely) or for Scott Morrison (the Prime Minister) to get his act together and actually do something for once in his ineffectual life, so equally unlikely.

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#124

Post by throwawayfear »

ehnto wrote: post #105
umvi wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rather than in a state-run, guarded, hotel room, or without regular police visits to their home Ah yes these are totally normal things for a democratic country to do

The borders are closed so it's a choice you have made to enter the country and require quarantine, you know what you signed up for it is made abundantly clear. I think if you asked the majority of Australians they would say that they are happy people have to quarantine at the hotels and that they be guarded, since most of our outbreaks have been from quarantine breaches. So as far as a democracy goes that's right on…

So you're okay with increasingly stricter subversion of freedom, because you've consumed media fear-mongering about the pandemic. The pandemic is not deadly enough to justify building a totalitarian regime.

What would have been the case if you asked the majority of Germans what they thought about certain restrictions in the 1930s?

Democracy is more than the "whole community setting the rules for the community." It is the rule of law in preserving the rights to life, liberty, and justice for all people. In the form of negative rights and the freedom to live as an individual unfettered by a mob of the majority. What you are describing and proposing is mob rule that subjects the 49% or fewer to tyranny.

And actually, what you're describing will subject 99.99% to tyranny because you are building a system of enslavement that will serve just the cream of the crop and crush everyone else.

Say it out loud. "They should have listened and the regular security guards should have been complaint! Now we need to use military officers to patrol and enforce." Say it out loud so you can hear what you're actually saying.

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#125

Post by hilbert42 »

ephextom wrote: post #104
umvi wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rather than in a state-run, guarded, hotel room, or without regular police visits to their home Ah yes these are totally normal things for a democratic country to do

Quarantine has been used in all kinds of societies for thousands of years during times of infectious outbreak. It’s described in the Bible, and it was used in the USA during the Spanish Flu. What is the point of quarantine without systems to ensure it is obeyed?

Exactly, for the life of me I cannot understand why some people just don't understand that. It's tragic really because many people have lost their lives through the bloodyminded actions of those who who've callous regard for others.

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#126

Post by throwawaylinux »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #117
throwawaylinux wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If society is violent, divided, and less trusting of one another, there is more willingness to turn to the state for protection. Unfortunately this creates a strong incentive for all governments to actually create such societies and increase division and mistrust in order to gain power.

But Australia isn’t violent, divided, and less trusting of one another. Neither are most of the western-style developed countries that turn to the state for protection. > Unfortunately this creates a strong incentive for all governments to actually create such societies and increase division and mistrust in order to gain power. Have you actually been to Australia before? Or Europe for that matter? Or Japan? Your clai…

> But Australia isn’t violent, divided, and less trusting of one another. Neither are most of the western-style developed countries that turn to the state for protection.

I didn't say they were.

> Have you actually been to Australia before? Or Europe for that matter? Or Japan?

Yes, yes, yes. Worthless rhetorical questions.

> Your claims don’t make much sense with the current examples.

What claims?

> All we have is a developed country that heavily values the right to bear arms and has a horrible crime rate, while the other countries are the exact opposite.

I'm not sure what you're getting at, but Europe is not a country. And there are more countries than your examples with differences in crime rates and gun ownership, so I suspect whatever point you are trying to prove with selective data points wouldn't actually hold up.

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#127

Post by hug »

throwawayfear wrote: post #103
hug wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Sir, if we make the general public use this, it will save 24% more lives" Oh no saving lives! What a terrible use of tech . Would it make you feel better if I told you that if we save their lives we can serve them more ads?

Do you think they'd roll out tyranny in broad daylight without trying to find a convenient excuse with which to fool the gullible? Of course they'll say it's to save lives. Just like the "think of the children" laws are always supposedly about protecting children. Like Apple and CSAM being obvious surveillance tools being introduced in the name of protecting children.

Deaths per capita in Australia is at 10% of the US. If the US had managed to keep things as low as Australia, there would be just under half a million less deaths.

Seriously. Half a million. And for that, you won't stay inside your house for two weeks, because you're worried it's a slippery slope of some sort.

What need for me to be gullible to think "I'd rather five hundred thousand less of my countrymen had died this year", and not go out?

What need for me to be gullible to think that you should do it to? What need for me to be gullible to look at my government forcing you to do it too and saying "that's a good move"?

The quarantine system is quite literally saving lives, and the things that we can do to improve that system should be done.

This is not trusting the government, and it's not "ignoring tyranny". It's how society ought to work.

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#128

Post by throwawayfear »

ephextom wrote: post #104
umvi wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rather than in a state-run, guarded, hotel room, or without regular police visits to their home Ah yes these are totally normal things for a democratic country to do

Quarantine has been used in all kinds of societies for thousands of years during times of infectious outbreak. It’s described in the Bible, and it was used in the USA during the Spanish Flu. What is the point of quarantine without systems to ensure it is obeyed?

Those systems will not go away once they are implemented. Power will consolidate. It is a system of enslavement.

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#129

Post by nineteen999 »

throwawayfear wrote: post #119
nineteen999 wrote: post #32

This headline is misleading ... "Australian gov" sounds like the Australian Federal government, but the government in question is the South Australian government, which is a State gov.

It is the article's headline, and there wasn't enough space to edit in the specific state. But is it actually a meaningful distinction as far as these policies being constrained permanently to just one part of Australia? Will this spread everywhere or is there a reason why this would only be constrained to a really small town no one really notices?

> It is the article's headline, and there wasn't enough space to edit in the specific state.

Sure - I noticed that and wasn't implying that you modified the article title. The article title is incorrect, at least in the way it reads at first glance - yes the South Australian government is "an Australian government", but it's not "The Australian Government".

> But is it actually a meaningful distinction as far as these policies being constrained permanently to just one part of Australia? Will this spread everywhere or is there a reason why this would only be constrained to a really small town no one really notices?

It's too early to tell - but it's worth noting that the main revenue generating states with the lion's share of attention in Australia are New South Wales and Victoria and so they usually set the tone of state policy countrywide. IMHO this is unlikely to spread to those states.

More importantly:

1) the article indicates that its use will be voluntary anyway;

2) Australia has a long track record of paying millions of dollars for technology like this that actually never works properly.

So as a Victorian I'm not too concerned.

Re: Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine

#130

Post by amanzi »

throwawayfear wrote: post #120
everettp wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moreover, it appears to be an optional way of allowing returned travellers to serve out their quarantine period at a place of their choosing rather than in a state-run, guarded, hotel room, or without regular police visits to their home. I would have thought HN would regard this as a sensible and efficient use of technology.

Returning travelers quarantining at home will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random…

Given the choice, I think most people would choose the app option and to isolate in the comfort of their own home.
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