US news magazine claims SA’s voluntary Covid-19 home quarantine tracking app is ‘as Orwellian as any in the free world’
A major US publication says a state government Covid app to track citizens is straight out of George Orwell’s 1984. But the article misses some pretty crucial context.
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The Marshall government has been accused of developing a Covid tracking app “as Orwellian as any in the free world” by a major US media publication. But SA’s top cop says the claim is “absurd”.
The Atlantic, a highly respected 164-year-old news magazine, published an article on Thursday taking aim at Australia’s “draconian” emergency restrictions and claiming we could arguably no longer be called a liberal democracy.
The Home Quarantine SA pilot program allows people to quarantine in their home rather than medi-hotels, if they agree to random check-ins via a facial recognition and geolocation app – but the article argues it’s a measure more akin to a communist police state.
“The government of South Australia, one of the country’s six states, developed and is now testing an app as Orwellian as any in the free world to enforce its quarantine rules,” California-based staff writer Conor Friedersdorf wrote.
“People in South Australia 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 photo 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.”
The article does not explain that the app is being trialled on an opt-in basis for people who choose to quarantine at home.
Instead, it claims citizens will be “forced” to download the app and be monitored by the state, likening this to George Orwell’s dystopian account of a totalitarian regime in 1984.
A state government spokesman said the app was “for a selected cohort of returning South Australians who have applied to be part of the trial”, and was intended to ease the burden of travel restrictions.
“South Australians should be proud of the way we have responded to the many and varied difficulties this awful virus has presented, and we hope this trial leads to improved outcomes for those of us that may need to quarantine in the future,” the spokesman said.
The phone app does not track a person at all times but records their location during check-in requests to check for quarantine compliance or breaches. All check-ins are random and a person has 15 minutes to respond.
Premier Steven Marshall has said stringent security would keep all information confidential.
US media outlets are becoming increasingly critical of Australia’s continuing harsh restrictions, border closures and lockdowns as the rest of the world opens up again, despite the rapid spread of the Delta variant and other virus mutations.
The Atlantic describes Australia as a “hermit continent” verging on a “police state”. But only near the end of its article does it acknowledge that the Australian death rate from Covid-19 is far below most other nations – just 4 people per 100,000, compared to 194 per 100,000 in the US.
“If a country indefinitely forbids its own citizens from leaving its borders, strands tens of thousands of its citizens abroad, puts strict rules on intrastate travel, prohibits citizens from leaving home without an excuse from an official government list, mandates masks even when people are outdoors and socially distanced, deploys the military to enforce those rules, bans protest, and arrests and fines dissenters, is that country still a liberal democracy?” Friedersdorf argues.
While he had not seen The Atlantic article, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens, who authorises all legal directions as state Covid-19 co-ordinator, rejected the “absurd suggestion”.
“I don’t subscribe to the notion that this is a police state,” he said.
“In fact if you look at south Australia, there is a very strong argument to suggest that we are more closely aligned to life as we would like it to be than many other places in Australia and around the world.
“But at the same time we are doing so in a way that is minimising the impact of Covid-19 substantially.
“I think we’re in some respects, we would be the envy of many places around the world. “
The Labor opposition did not comment as it was yet to receive a detailed briefing from the government on the app trial.
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