The government’s COVID-19 response opened the door to various threats to human and digital rights. With the influence of its neighbours with poor rights records, Nepal must decide on its own path if it envisions a democratic digital ecosystem.
Australia adopted a range of technology based responses to address the COVID-19 pandemic, but this approach resulted in “solutions” that ranged from the outright ineffective to the actively punitive.
The Sri Lankan government has capitalised on the COVID-19 pandemic to further its authoritarian agenda, using digital technologies to reinforce a climate of fear and censorship.
In Indonesia, the PeduliLindungi app has become synonymous with and inseparable from the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet it poses an unprecedented threat due to a number of factors, all while leaving citizens with little to no recourse to protect their data.
In this 10-part series, EngageMedia and CommonEdge have invited 10 changemakers to respond to the current “pandemic of control” in the Asia-Pacific, amid growing digital authoritarianism that has only accelerated due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In many Asia-Pacific countries, contact tracing apps are now doubling as vaccine passports, used by governments to enforce various restrictions on travel and entry to a wide variety of venues and establishments. But the widespread waning of vaccine protection against infection and transmission requires a debate on whether vaccine passports are effective as a pandemic management tool – or merely a form of theatre that opens up a host of privacy, and security issues.
EngageMedia, in partnership with CommonEdge, is calling for contributions to a series exploring how the response to COVID-19 has accelerated digital authoritarianism in the Asia-Pacific. The selected contributions will first be published on EngageMedia.org, and later in a digital compilation. Accepted contributors will be paid a USD 300 honorarium.
For our final playlist in 2021, EngageMedia curates a collection of short films that magnifies the daily struggles of individuals and communities during these challenging times, and reflects the wide-ranging impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in ways that are both apparent and invisible.
The Foundation for Media Alternatives, a Coconet community member, has published a new report, “State of the Digital Nation: The Digital Rights Report 2020”, that documents how human rights were impacted by technology and digital innovations in the country. The report is based on findings from January to December 2020.
