COVID-19 has seen a number of governments in the post-Soviet region enhance their law enforcement and surveillance capabilities. Governments are leveraging existing technologies to police COVID-19 lockdowns and using the pandemic as a test case for new forms of tracking citizens. In the absence of a clear end date to the pandemic, there is an emerging threat of governments’ maintaining enhanced restrictions on fundamental freedoms and employing surveillance technology indefinitely as a means of suppressing dissent. The international community will need to improve its understanding of these threats, and integrate them into policy responses to democratic deficiencies in the region.
COVID-19 AND THE SURVEILLANCE STATE: A NEW PRETEXT FOR LIMITING PERSONAL FREEDOMS AND DISSENT IN THE POST-SOVIET SPACE
