'If you've got nothing to hide, why does it bother you so much?' asks the hubs, insisting that I tap my phone onto the laminated square badly taped to the table at our favourite pho place. They haven't wiped the table yet, and a flaccid noodle sits sadly next to two tiny empty teacups and a thermos of tea, unique to some Vietnamese restaurants. I'm kinda hovering my phone above the square, making a show of it. I can be a good actor in situations like this. The trick is to actually believe you are doing it, whilst knowing you are not doing it at the same time.
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'You know you'll be fined, right?' he says. I'm not sure about individual fines, but I know that businesses can face up to $1,652. With the new 'outbreak' in Victoria, the state has mandated that we check in at all retail stores, supermarkets and cafes. Even our DIY Chain, Bunnings, where lower prices are just the beginning, and one can grab a hot sausage with onions on a Saturday, or used to, BV (before Virus). Yesterday, I waved my phone over the QR code reader, smiled at the security guard, wandered through the store, realised I didn't bring cash and that THEY WOULD KNOW if I used my card, and walked out without the paint I'd gone out of my way for.
There is not one word of protest online.
When I go out for lunch with my sister, enjoying a delightful southern fried tofu burger and sweet potato fries, she looks at me sternly and says that I better not be waving my phone and not actually signing in.
'I'm not!' I grouch, tapping furiously at my phone. I wave the phone in front of her eyes, but by the time she finds her glasses, the phone is slapped on the table, face down, and I'm furiously studying the menu.
Victoria Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton argues it will help contact tracing efforts so they can find every single person that's possibly been exposed. Doing your bit, like in the War, you know. Because we are in this together.
I slurp pho and mutter to hubs that we're surveilled enough already. Can I not hold onto some illusory freedoms, like eating pho without people knowing that my last steps before I die was eating pho? Can I please not be that guy who was made into a satirical meme because every place he visited that day was something to do with barbecues? I wish for a 'private browser' option in my real life, as if I could walk from the garden centre to the green grocers without Them knowing. It all just feels nefarious. You can't possibly say so, of course, because then you are branded a Conspiracy Theorist, and that smarts, because you know they say Conspiracy Theorist like you have just landed from outer space and plan to annihilate The Australian Way of Life.
'Have you checked in?' the waitress says. I slurp noodles and smile. For reassurance, I wave my phone around, as if it is a beacon of virtue in the darkness of this viral era.
'That'll be $34.50' she says.
I hand her the cash.
With Love,
Are you on HIVE yet? Earn for writing! Referral link for FREE account here
What she said.
I'm so with you. I don't know how else to elaborate other than the first two sentences and one of these:
Haha, well, sometimes a gif and a ditto is all you need - especially the gif, which I honestly don't know how we lived without. Imagine a world without them - communication would be nigh on impossible.
Wow, that's really wild that they are making you check in like that. Firstly, not everyone has a phone, or a smart phone. Secondly, your phone carrier damn well can track you anyway based on what cell towers your phone is pinging off of. That is literally how they have caught criminals before.
Yeah, like, I'm not a Conspiracy Theorist and I am especially not so about covid, but I AM fucking worried about the privacy invasions we generally seem to accept (or are forced to accept if we want to function in society) with tech and stuff. They pretend like you can just not accept the terms and conditions, but you need that computer with that software for work or whatever, so, not really.
You can sign in with paper and pen if you don't have the tracking app. I don't have data, so I do it that way, now they're hovering over you to get it done. I'm starting to think that's preferable to the app anyway, as others have mentioned, you can't be certain what you're scanning is legit and your information won't get hacked. In fact, hacking and system crashes are real issues here, because Australia is so behind technologically, but they're still trying to have everything digitised.
I agree. As @minismallholding said, you can sign in with pen and paper. And as she said, I don't trust it either, hence the waving. I will, however, sign the sheet, in a script any doctor would be proud of.
Lol! Saw a sign-in today in that very style of script. Pointless in the situation given, other than it might stop passers by reading it and using it nefariously. We were there by appointment, so the place already had all our details and more. Centrelink hoop jumping, so it goes straight to the government anyway.
I really HATE QR codes as you have no idea what you are scanning man. one day everything will be stolen due to someone who swapped the original qr for a mailicious qr. Not a fan
Yeah, exactly, but people just trust that more than they trust the fact they very likely will not die from the virus.
The biggest problem is not only to be controled by those who change laws every single day, but also to be exposed to abusers, to hackers. Imagine they will get the data base of all people who are linked to this system. A lot will lose their money and maybe even what they own. If everything will be digitized, everyone will be in danger. In Russia they want even to create electronic pasports. Even names could be changed by hackers and any thing could be edited. That's very dangerous !
Indeed. I couldn't agree more. To write about it or speak about it, however, is to be branded a conspiracy theorist here. It's easier to keep quiet and pretend instead of spending my whole life ranting at people who roll their eyes at you. They are SO scared of the virus that they'd do anything. And if they aren't scared of the virus, they are scared of these endless lockdowns, so believe that whatever makes their life easier is worth doing, despite greater concerns about data and freedoms.
It's crazy how most people can't understand what's going. It's clear that the virus was created, or even just faked it by spreading news about it, to create those restrictions and a new world order. It's not conspiracy anymore. Lockdowning healthy people never happened in the history. People never were masks everywhere before. Scientists were sharing useful information. Constitutions were respected. And many other things proves that what's happening is a conspiracy but not for the sake of people and their health.
I enjoy watching the videos of The Dollar Vigilante. Here https://lbry.tv/@DollarVigilante:b. He talks about all this in a very funny form. Because looking at all this that way is much better to not lose our minds. ☺
What happened to the right to walk the earth without a phone ?
I guess they will hand out free phone's soon then .
I stopped leaving the house with a phone , a camera will do fine . ;-)
Oh, that looks cool, unless it's a cult, hahah. I was watching a youtube thing about a Dutch guy who had a cult the other day -- can't remember the name. Pity I don't have charisma, as starting a cult would be more profitable than HIVE or my teaching job.
It's for stressed out managers and woke chill's i guess .
One day : just be ,.. day retread ..... 80 euro
One day : silence ,.. i am silent ..... 170 euro
one day : digital detox ,. total cleansing 240 euro
There's a 15 euro 1 hour yoga course , could review that , with my zero experience in yoga . Good for meeting (annoying) some people to . On the other side , it could go ugly , like when they convince me to do the detox .
Well at least no Q-code's required , and yes there where some Dutch that formed cult's , Jomanda , Rasta Rosteli and Rutte to name a view , but to me there was only one true cult master ever born on these grounds .
Source : https://oohm.nl/digital-detox/
Herman Brood ,... go ask Nina Hagen ,.. ;-)
Whoops , this comment got filled , Well i guess that's what i get when i plan to post but end up doing a comment . 🙄 😜😉
Yeah, that's several steps too far. Government tracking of everybody's locations and "checking-in" is just absolute dystopia, way too far down the path of "1984."
It's odd, as people believe 'utopia' is 'virus free', and to get there, you need to be controlled for the good of all. But of course, we all know how quickly utopias become dystopic.
I never liked QR codes but not necessarily because of privacy issues. They just felt off for me. I am glad that I didn't have to experiences like the one you describe in your writing, probably because I have stayed out of ( big ) cities for about a year now. I would definitely struggle with this. It sure feels like we're living in a surveillance state these days ( Big Brother is now watching us more and more ) and yeah, people seem to do everything to regain their 'freedom', which I understand after being repressed / contained / isolated for over a year now.
Big hug!
They are quite ugly things too, aren't hey? Yes, we are in the surveillance state - that's where we've been headed all along. YOu should watch the fantastic doco 'Can't Get you Out of my Head'. I recommend this to @stortebeker also, who might also appreciate the soundtrack.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p093wp6h
It's a fantastic think piece and you can also find it on Youtube.
Cool, thanx for the tip. I'll put it on my list, hahahaha!
Yes, they are indeed ugly. I think my aesthetic eye always struggled with them. That and the fact that they hide stuff, as well as the annoying apps and the scanning hahaha.
I will see if I can check out that documentary.
xx
Okay, my first reaction when reading this was: Who paid for your phone? Who's paying for the network service? Since in both cases it was YOU who made the choice to get and pay for it, you should be able to decide any time that you don't want to have and pay for it any more. So how could you complete your check-in without a phone? Oh...! That's right, you couldn't. So the government (or whoever demands you to sign in) should be the one to pay for both your phone and your service, right? Or at least get you a non-phone-device that reads QR-codes, and such. Wait, there is no such thing? Okay, back to square one.
While I don't think anyone would know or care where anyone has been, simply the fact of being watched is enough to start a protest. And as much as I love sitting in cafes or going to restaurants, that's where I would start - that is stop. And I am certain you are not the only one. I bet there are others who have stopped going out all together because of this. It's those "conspiracy nutcakes" that need to join together to get a serious movement going. Of course, that'll be a bit challenging without phones, and also impossible to meet in cafes, not to mention the reaction of all the obedient fools.
But as far as information goes, and asking for stuff that's nobody's business... There was once a time in my life, when I used to go up to complete strangers and ask them for their mother's maiden name. Sometimes they would tell me, laughingly, but they REALLY didn't like it when I got out a pen and paper to actually write it down. I'm not even sure any more what my original intention was. But I think it would be a fitting reaction to being coerced into random "checking-in".
I agree with you entirely - that's my issue. You can say that I have nothing to hide, but that's not the principle. I adore your example of asking for maiden names - although these days I'm sure they'd say: 'if it keeps me and my family safe from 'x' threat, you can have the small finger of my right hand and my left kidney'.
Right, but in such a situation I think it would be more than apparent that it DOESN'T help keep anyone safe, it's just a random intrusion into one's privacy.
By the way, this post of yours kept my mind quite occupied yesterday. In Mazunte I met a whole bunch of people who have left places like Germany or Spain because of exactly this type of high-control insanity. The good news is that in France (supposedly) they made any kind of post-covid distinction illegal. At least in Restaurants and stores they can't ask you if you're tested or vaccinated. So there is hope for the rest of us.
Nice that you don't "need" to
We are not allowed in without showing them we have checked in and taken our temperature.
If the authorities are on their rounds then they get fined and so does the individual who cannot prove they checked in.
It's really crazy!! I too don't like the idea of having to report my every whereabout with time-stamps but I don't want to give them money more 🙃
Sounds like you are a little more militant there, but we aren't too far from that here - it depends where you are, really. It certainly makes me not WANT to enter any shops, that' sfor sure!
I once visited a company who had implemented a video capture system that allowed them to recognize everyone in the offices and gather detailed metrics about their movements. You could say, show me @riverflows location on Monday at 2 PM, and the system would quickly find the information and the video associated with it. The level of granularity was astonishing. The system was set up only for that company, but can you imagine what will happen in the future when the system is ubiquitous?
Personally, I think that surveillance tech will become widespread, and as always we’ll need to use our intelligence to get out of any potential pitfalls and use the technology to our benefit. Have you ever seen the Prime show Person of Interest? This series demonstrates the good and the bad of such technology.
Excellent piece with wonderfully detailed descriptions and insights.
Thankyou for your compliment. Sometimes it's better to write about things in a descriptive way, so you enjoy the rant a little more - as I'm sure you'd agree.
I haven't seen that - but I've seen Black Mirror, and have been an avid fan of dystopian fiction of all kinds too, or speculative fiction, which I prefer. The 'worse case scenarios' and 'what ifs' are happening to us now, and any fiction seems only a day away from this point, rather than in a 1984, as it were.
I just can't understand why people are allowing it to happen. Well, I can, but I wish they'd think more laterally!
Well, I wouldn't say you have reason not to be concerned. Usually when governments reduce freedoms, they never give all of them back when the time is due. I am curious to see what COVID-19 remnants will remain around for years after they are relevant. I suspect many things concerning limiting human freedom of movement will stick around far into the future.
Yes, see, you are I are feeling the same there. @drrune I think is more hopeful - see comment below.
I have no experience with this level of intromission. The regime here, though authoritarian and criminal, has made only half-hearted and chaotic attempts at surveillance, although they once created a list of people who had in the past voted against Chávez or actively opposed him, and you could get fired, not hired at all or lose all kinds of social benefits and have your civic guarantees constantly violated if they found out you were in that list. That was the single most competent attempt at profiling that chavistas could ever manage, and those days are long gone, even the guy who composed that list is dead.
I'm not concerned about surveillance of any kind, I'd wager lots of my personal information are scattered all over the web anyway already. However, I find this kind of practices so outdated and pointless. They're not conducive to solutions, they're just another random expression of a deeply male desire for dominance and control, the guys who imposed these measures wouldn't even know what to do with the data they're gathering. The faster we get rid of institutions and groups that promote "brilliant" ideas such as this one, the better humanity will do.
I agree - I was talking about it with a female colleague this morning who beleves that's all crumbling, which I find interesting, as I just see it digging in and getting strong. Maybe I've just given up - grasping for hope at the moment. The government should never, ever be in charge of people's freedom of movement. i can understand the border control, but I can't understand why we can't even cross state lines.