Apps, maps and war rooms: on the modes of existence of “COVtech” in India

Abstract

This paper on the SARS-CoV-2 crisis in India examines the emergence of "COVtech" as a range of public sector-led technologies of surveillance, management and containment of the virus. COVtech lends itself to examination of what Simondon calls "concretisation" of technical objects. We argue that COVtech initiatives have different modes of existence in India-first as the redeployment of existing technologies assembled across urban, regional and federal scales of governance; second, as current technologies curated within translocally situated networks which are mobilised to provide relief and support to vulnerable groups locked out/in Indian cities. We conclude by proposing that a progressive mode of existence of COVtech rests not with the 'what' and 'where' of the disease monitored by the apps, maps and War rooms of the State, but in addressing the 'who' and 'how' of its impacts mobilised by civil society and non-state actors.

Managing risk, governmentality and geoinformation: Vectors of vulnerability in the mapping of COVID‐19

“…Inequalities that are affected not only by the technologies used but also by the mandated lockdowns. One segment of the population that was heavily affected were migrant workers that were denied access to public spaces, and more disturbingly, they ‘were often violently disciplined by the police’ in response to their breaking of lockdown rules (Datta et al, 2020, p. 6). And because there was no central database with information on migrants, they were left invisible in the analytics of COVtech.…”

“…An illustrative example of the positive as well as the negative reality of this pandemic biopolitics is the situation in Indian cities documented by Datta et al (2020). The pandemic led to the integration of ‘CCTV and drone surveillance, google map tracking, as well as AI, facial recognition and predictive analytics’, the zoning of cities ‘into red, orange and green areas based on infection rates’ and repurposing of Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCC) into war rooms monitoring the virus (Datta et al, 2020, p. 1). The resulting ‘COVtech’ utilized maps and apps to render the virus visible, while at the same time dissolving the boundaries between home, work and leisure (Datta et al, 2020, p. 1) as surveillance and control of the virus became embedded further and further into the lives of Indian citizens.…”

“…An example of this threat to civil liberties in containing COVID‐19, is the ‘Aarogya Setu’ app which exemplifies the trade‐off between security and the rights of citizens. The app was reported to be tracking ‘home‐quarantine citizens and their movement on a real time basis using GPS tracking’, and in Delhi ‘the authorities handed over 25, 429 private mobile phone numbers to the Police to monitor quarantine and isolation’ (Datta et al, 2020, p. 3). This dissolution of the boundaries between home, security and travel is not unique to India alone as I will show below, but what is worth noting is the duality of COVtech.…”

“…In Section 3, I shall be turning from the biophysical and societal vulnerabilities revealed by geoinformation technologies, to what I consider the ethical vulnerabilities highlighted by surveillance studies scholarship (Bauman & Lyon, 2013; Datta et al, 2020; Haggerty & Ericson, 2000). I will be zooming in on the use of COVtech in India, emergency legislature in Ghana and other invasive uses of geoinformation technology that illustrate the emergence of pandemic biopolitics (Everts, 2020; Kitchin, 2020).…”

Das Gehirn der Smart City

“…3): Hier soll die Coronapandemie in den jeweiligen Städten datenbasiert und in Echtzeit lesbar gemacht und ‚bekämpft' werden. Wie erste Debattenbeiträge hinsichtlich dieser Ent wick lung zeigen, wird dabei in hohem Maße auf die im Rahmen der "Smart City Mis sion" etablierten Technologien zurückgegriffen -diese Infra struk turen rahmen und beeinflussen damit auch die Bearbeitung der Krise(Datta et al 2020; siehe auch Söderström 2020).Unser Beitrag geht von der Beobachtung aus, dass command and control center im Kontext von Smart-City-Vorhaben in Indien zu zentralen Elementen von Stadt ent wicklungsprojekten werden. Die "Smart City Mission" in Indien ist eines der ambitioniertesten Smart-City-Projekte weltweit und kann als neue Generation indischer Stadtmodernisierungspolitiken verstanden werden, mit der eine indische Version unternehmerischer Stadtpolitik verfolgt wird.…”