As new authentication and surveillance technologies, such as vaccine passports and track-and-trace apps, were rolled out during the pandemic, civil rights organisations and activists raised the question of mission creep — that is, the likelihood of governments clinging on to these technologies and using them for unanticipated ends, heralding a new era of normalised state surveillance. Even the United Nations warned that the potential for abuse was high and that “what is justified during an emergency now may become normalised once the crisis has passed”. Some went even further, claiming that the pandemic was being deliberately exploited by global elites to usher in a “great reset” of human societies — a shift towards an increasingly propertyless, cashless, ultra-digitalised economy. At the time, such concerns were dismissed as groundless conspiracy theories. And yet, like so many other claims that were initially ridiculed and censored only to be proven correct over time, events are corroborating many of these fears. Following the recent G20 meeting in Bali, the leaders of the world’s largest economies issued a joint declaration that, among other things, called for the establishment of a global vaccine passport and digital health ID scheme… (READ MORE)

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