Monday’s news that pharmaceutical company Pfizer’s early results on a new COVID-19 vaccine showed a 90% efficacy rate on an initial clinical trial have given concert professionals hope that the business can start mounting a return in 2021. As part of that preparation, Ticketmaster has been working on a framework for post-pandemic fan safety that uses smart phones…
Category: Surveillance
NBC News reports “Twitter bans 7,000 QAnon accounts, limits 150,000 others as part of broad crackdown”
The company will classify QAnon as coordinated harmful activity in part because of a rise in harassment targeting high-profile critics of the president. Twitter announced Tuesday that it has begun taking sweeping actions to limit the reach of QAnon content, banning many of the conspiracy theory’s followers because of problems with harassment and misinformation. Twitter…
USA Today reports “When there’s a coronavirus vaccine, how will we make sure everybody gets it? That’s the job of state immunization registries.”
A collection of 62 obscure state and local agencies may end up being crucial players in the fight against coronavirus once vaccines become available. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/06/12/coronavirus-vaccine-state-immunization-registries/5321892002/
Medium op-ed from former ID2020 technical advisor: “The Dangers of Blockchain-Enabled ‘Immunity Passports’ for COVID-19”
Despite limited backing from civil society or public health experts, as well as warnings from historians and bioethicists, technologists are racing ahead to build and deploy digital certificates that would allegedly let individuals “prove” whether they have recovered from the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), have tested positive for antibodies, or have received a vaccination, should one become available. https://medium.com/berkman-klein-center/the-dangers-of-blockchain-enabled-immunity-passports-for-covid-19-5ff84cacb290
News Punch reports “Technical Advisor Resigns From ID2020 Alliance Expressing Concerns Over Their Mission”
Renieris, a Harvard lawyer, resigned from the organization due to a difference of opinion over the organization’s direction. She claims the organization is not transparent and is concerned that they would get involved in COVID-19 immunity passports. Renieris believes that immunity passports are premature and could potentially infringe privacy rights for tests that are unproven and that…
True Pundit report “Bill Gates Negotiated $100 Billion Contact Tracing Deal With Democratic Congressman Sponsor of Bill Six Months BEFORE Coronavirus Pandemic”
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation helped negotiate who would score a $100 Billion government-backed contact tracing contract in August 2019 — six months before the ‘pandemic’ arrived in the United States and four months before it swept through China.
Business Insider reports “Trump said Apple and Google’s COVID-19 tracing tech posed ‘big constitutional problems'”
President Trump claims Google and Apple’s technology for detecting COVID-19 poses “big constitutional problems” for “a lot of people.” Google and Apple are partnered last week to create a contact-tracing system for detecting the spread of coronavirus, which will gradually be rolled out in the coming months. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-apple-google-covid-19-tracing-tech-constitutional-problems-2020-4