Australian gov to use facial recognition and GPS tracking to enforce quarantine • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by notatoad » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:23 AM UTC

throwawayfear wrote: post #113

notatoad wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, there's been a lot of freaking out about this, but it's much less oppressive than being forced to stay in a quarantine hotel.

Read out loud what you are saying. You are saying that government ordering you to quarantine in your house, with facial recognition and GPS tracking in your own home, is less oppressive than being forced to stay in one of their quarantine hotels. And you're saying that in response to all the "freaking out" about this. Keep in mind that when quarantined this way, if you fail to respond to their random, RANDOM , pings.…

i read out loud what i said. it still sounds reasonable to me, and given the choice between quarantining at home with app-based check ups and quaranting in a quarantine facility, i'd choose to stay at home.

when you disagree with somebody, please make an attempt to believe that the person you disagree with has actually thought about what they said. assuming that the only reason somebody might disagree with you is becauase they don't understand an issue as well as you do is a really insulting way to attempt to join a conversation.

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

#162

Post by shirro » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:26 AM UTC

umvi wrote: post #97

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.

> 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

A lot of people on the Internet aren't so much pro-democracy as anti-government. Strong competent democratic government must be a challenge to their view of the world. Personally I would prefer a competent democracy to mob rule or the dictators that inevitably follow.

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

#163

Post by hug » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:27 AM UTC

throwawayfear wrote: post #142

hug wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

We did stay in our house for two weeks. We locked down, and things were pretty locked down around where I'm at. Also, masks work and are freely given anywhere you go to shop. And vaccines are available. And natural immunity works. All these things in conjunction help without authorities building surveillance machines that will never go away. The approach you are taking can be used to justify complete control and arbi…

> The approach you are taking can be used to justify complete control and arbitrary lockdowns whenever N cases or N deaths for any virus happen. Or for anything that can be construed as a public health crisis, including things not related to viruses. Don't you see that?

Yeah, I do see that! In fact it's almost like Australia wrote an act about this stuff like 80 years ago that define the criteria and rights and responsibilities of the commonwealth during national emergencies. And it's almost like the pandemic meets those criteria and then we used the powers as written in the act.

Almost like this isn't the emergence of a totalitarian state but was the state we lived in all along, or something.

> My heart breaks for any death anywhere. Including the death of a free and normal life. Suicides and depression have skyrocketed. [... > ...] And it is not appropriate to beat someone over the head with the numbers of death in response to them calling out the systems of enslavement you are building in Australia.

Cognitive dissonance getting to you, yet?

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

#164

Post by jeeeb » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:28 AM UTC

tarboreus wrote: post #155

ephextom wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The word quarantine comes from 40 days, though. They weren't indefinite and endless.

Good. This isn’t either. This is for 14 days or until you test negative from COVID.

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

#165

Post by ephextom » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

tarboreus wrote: post #155

ephextom wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The word quarantine comes from 40 days, though. They weren't indefinite and endless.

In that context it was 40 days for each returning ship. Australia’s quarantine is only 14 days for returning travelers.

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

#166

Post by throwawaylinux » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:39 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #160

throwawaylinux wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

We have tons of examples of states where the government takes responsibility for protecting the people and are safer than the one example where a second amendment exists to keep people "safe". If you want to split hairs between western and eastern europe, yes, countries like the Ukraine is not as safe as the USA, but that in no way proves your point.

You didn't address my post or answer my questions. What "point" is it that you think I am making? What claims is it you think I have made?

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

#167

Post by smylie » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 3:19 AM UTC

shkkmo wrote: post #135

throwawayfear wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me what about this reduces government overreach and the severity of the law. 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…

Up until now you had no choice, when returning to Australia you had to pay to stay in a 2 week quarantine hotel. Creating an alternative solution for home quarantine gives people more options. You could argue that there was a better way to implement home quarantine. You could argue that the 2 week quarantine is goverment overreach. You could even argue that this option helps the government keep the 2 week quarantine…

I don't think you can argue with this subset of americans on this. I tried when this came up on hacker news last week, and they were adamant this was worse that going into a hotel, and that australians citizens were sleep walking into a totalitarian state for allowing this to happen. (And also that they only had second amendment rights like the USA this would never be allowed to happen).

It was a bit of a wake up call actually - the level of conversation was starting to feel more like reddit than what I'd always (until now i guess) expected from hacker news.

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

#168

Post by ephextom » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 3:21 AM UTC

throwawayfear wrote: post #153

ephextom wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever their intentions, governments can’t sustain these measures forever economically or politically.

Yes they can. Especially in Australia where people don’t have means to defend themselves and are falling for the “vaxed vs unvaxed” narrative. Pit sides against each other and they’ll clamor for the state to protect the peace and establish order. And that it will do with increasingly invasive measures like arresting pregnant women for making anti-lockdown Facebook posts or locking residents of an entire apartment com…

> Imagine being told in 2018 this would happen

Every possible scenario would have been alarming. 50000 deaths and a collapsing hospital system would have been unthinkable too. Australia has chosen to avoid that nightmare, and has chosen a different, also highly undesirable but marginally preferable path.

People are getting whipped up into a frenzy about all this, based on mental models of government and population relations that may apply elsewhere but don’t apply in Australia.

In truth:

- there is heavy pushback on government by the media and population, acceptance of lockdowns is in rapid decline, and governments are being forced to change their polices week by week.

- We don’t have a heavily militarized and hostile relationship between police, military and the population, it has always been egalitarian and cohesive, like pretty much everything else in the country.

- Australia has been ranked in/near the top 10 freest countries in the world for a long time, and little of what has happened during the pandemic would warrant that changing.

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

#169

Post by belltaco » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 3:33 AM UTC

throwawayfear wrote: post #124

ehnto wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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.

How dangerous do you think covid is? Is it just a common cold like the recipient of the highest civilian award in the US said? [1] Or just a flu like Fox News kept saying[2]?

Are these scenes in Russia[3] and India[4] made up, or are those acceptable when only a fraction of people were infected, and no lockdowns would mean a much worse situation?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/25/rush-limbaug...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAh4uS4f78o

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kbNGR7XjrY

[4] https://youtube.com/watch?v=D0Y1YakG60s

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

#170

Post by rossy » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 3:43 AM UTC

throwawayfear wrote: post #153

ephextom wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever their intentions, governments can’t sustain these measures forever economically or politically.

Yes they can. Especially in Australia where people don’t have means to defend themselves and are falling for the “vaxed vs unvaxed” narrative. Pit sides against each other and they’ll clamor for the state to protect the peace and establish order. And that it will do with increasingly invasive measures like arresting pregnant women for making anti-lockdown Facebook posts or locking residents of an entire apartment com…

> When they have already been sustaining this stuff for going on two years with no signs of letting up.

For what it's worth (you've revealed in another comment that you're not Australian, so you might not be aware,) in the period between the 2020 lockdown and the delta outbreak this year (approx. October 2020 to June 2021) things had almost returned to normal. I was back at work and at sport. Beaches and shopping centres were packed. State borders were open (a friend went on a camping trip to Queensland.) It was remarkable how quickly things returned to normal once the number of new cases dropped to zero, and it was surreal to watch international news and see that not everyone was able to live like us. This outbreak is more severe, but I have no reason to believe things won't be like that again once case numbers drop.