Trackntracer twitter bot

https://twitter.com/trackntracer

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Drawing on several previous works, the new work: Pandemonium takes the NHSCovid19 app as it’s focus, with @trackntracer twitter bot (recently followed by Richard Eudes Director of Deloitte*) deployed as a research assistant, taking the temperature of public debate, rt’ing mentions of track and trace since November 2020.

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The track and trace apps quite naturally exceed all previous anxieties regarding surveillance, reaching across bio-medical practice to behavioural analysis, and, at the same time, hold the promise of a pragmatic approach, which, seemingly, when used in combination with measures such as mask wearing, social distancing protocols and an effective vaccination programme, could mean the possibility of a return to being able to co-mingle, once again – as can be seen in several countries success in controlling the pandemic, the world over.

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A volatile feed where concerns crystallize around biomedical data, privacy, personal freedoms, and a wild variety of conspiritualities, as conspiracy meets the wellness industry.

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Many of which relate to practices of data management and analysis, that raise security and privacy concerns, with worries about mission creep made possible by the financial underpinnings of the app, and the expectations of those investing, and contributing. That the app is in any way discussed as the entry point to vaccine passports, confirms the worst fears of a particularly b-movie bio-political sort, whilst the need for mass medical data to provide deep insights into the behaviour of new variants of the virus, doesn’t diminish with our lack of appetite for what seems like surveillance by the back door.

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* one of the private companies invested in the app

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see further writing on this whilst on the residency on Risk, at Radar, Loughborough University during the pandemic

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