October 14, Asia Meetup

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Date: October 14

Time: Delhi 13:30 (UTC+5:30) / Taipei-Kuala Lumpur 16:00 (UTC+8) / Tokyo 17:00 (UTC+9) / NYC 4am (EST)

Who: Facilitated by Lulu

Where: The Meetjitsi link will be shared in the following rooms on the IFF Mattermost one or two hours before the start of the meeting: Southeast Asia, Central Asia and East Asia.

• Don't have an account to the IFF Mattermost? you can request one following the directions here.

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Who was here? We had 11 people joining the meetup!

Topic 1 "Pandemic Surveillance"

• what are the contact tracing methods
• is your government expanding this contract tracing into everyday surveillance?
• How about domestic/intimate surveillance, facilitated by cheap CCTV, seems to have increased and normalised too during the pandemic (neighbours surveillance, etc)?
  • Taiwan: Here, our government builds the electronic fence system to monitor people under the quarantine. Although it is only for quarantine (boder control), the problem is, government link so many personal database to track people, and there is no law to point out how them deal with this massive database after COVID-19. (The database status in May is recorded in IFF CKS notes.
  • Malaysia: Public policing is also happening. Random public will just take your photo and send to the police if you're not wearing a mask on the street, or you're having a pink band on your wrist (people who supposed to self-quarantine) but you're on the street.
  • India: The contact tracing app "Aarogya Setu" is mandated by a lot of services (from food delivery to travelling inter-state). They take a lot of private (mostly unnecessary) informations that causes a lot of surveillance issue.
• In the beginging of this pandemic, many groups and countries were talking about pandemic surveillence and technology the goverenment use. However, after we all realize COVID-19 will totally change our life and won't end in the short-time. The disscusions seem to change to broader issues, such as shriking civic space, remote work etc, not too many updates about recently pandemic surveillance. Besides the "Pandemic Big Brother" project https://pandemicbigbrother.online/en/, is there other project focusing on pandemic surveillance?
• Since many areas, such as Europe, are facing 2nd wave of COVID-19, how is Asia countries?
  • India and some SouthEast Asia countries: We are still in the first wave of COVID-19!!!!

Topic 2 "Incident in Thailand & Indonesia"

• We will have friends from Thailand & Indonesia to give a brief updates on what's happening in the countries.
  • Briefer for Indonesia: https://engagemedia.org/2020/indonesia-omnibus-law/ (hashtags, fundraising drives in there)
  • Briefer for Thailand: https://engagemedia.org/2020/thailand-youth-democracy-freedom-speech/ (a bit dated from last month, but many are still relevant)
• Discuss about possible support the community in Asia, esp SEA can provide.
• Question:
  • Is there any counter protests online accounts you notice, that attacking the activists online?
  • Is there anything the IFF community can do to support?