For years, the tobacco industry denied smoking causes cancer. Similarly, the biometrics industry, despite knowing facial recognition destroys everyone’s privacy, claims it can help stop the spread of COVID-19. It is like they ripped their marketing strategy straight from the pages of Big Tobacco’s playbook.
Clear’s plan to force employees to submit to daily facial recognition tests and daily health quizzes before they can go to work will destroy any lasting thoughts Americans had about their privacy.
Axios.com’s article describes how businesses can profit by linking employees’ personal health to their faces.
“Before businesses can effectively reopen, workers and customers need to be assured that they’re unlikely to encounter coronavirus infections. Linking COVID-19 to IDs could make that easier, but to be fully effective, it requires a more vigorous and reliable testing regimen, as well as public acceptance of a new level of tech-enabled health surveillance.”
CLEAR’s facial recognition/health surveillance program forces employees to submit to CLEAR’s real-time “Health Pass” quizzes.
“The system works like this: Using a Health Pass app, people have their identity validated through facial recognition, then they indicate whether they’re sick by taking a real-time health quiz and uploading test results. That would generate a QR code, which can be scanned by some device, like a phone or a Clear kiosk, to allow entry into an office or store within a certain time period.”
Imagine giving a biometric company the power to decide who gets to work and who doesn’t in real-time? Because that is exactly what Clear wants.
Employees will be “asked” to download the CLEAR app on their smartphones and then enroll in the so-called free service. I italicized “asked” because while it is technically true they will be asked to download the app, they will not be allowed to work unless they use CLEAR’s app.
Imagine a biometric company making deals with businesses to force employees to give up their biometric privacy just to earn a living.
“To enter a business or venue that employs Health Pass, users will snap a selfie to authenticate their identity and take a health quiz on possible COVID-19 symptoms. The company says that it plans for users to be able to link COVID-19 test results with their digital identity in the future.”
As Axios points out, forcing people to fill out daily health quizzes and daily temperature checks after they have been out of work for so long, is no guarantee that people will answer them honestly.
“There’s no guarantee that a user will fill out a health quiz honestly, especially if the answers could mean the difference between being able to work or not. Temperature checks wouldn’t necessarily catch the asymptomatic or those in the infectious period before symptoms set in.”
CLEAR claims that forcing everyone to submit daily biometric check-ins and real-time health quizzes makes people feel safer.
“Health Pass by Clear gives employees and consumers the confidence and peace of mind to get back to work, shop at their favorite store, step into a restaurant and attend a ball game”
The only ones who will feel safer are Homeland Security and CLEAR who will have created a real-time biometric database of millions of working Americans.
(Editor’s note: Given the intertwined nature of the surveillance state, it’s almost certain this information would end up in government databases. We’ve written previously about CLEAR’s airport operations and the likelihood it passes info on to the feds.)
Forcing employees to take quizzes and undergo thermal imaging scans is really just a workplace smoke screen as OneZero Medium points out.
“Someone can actively have the Covid-19 virus but not produce antibodies detectable by a test, meaning they would be an invisible and active carrier of the disease. In fact, no result from an antibody test meaningfully changes what a person should do in this situation, which is practice social distancing whenever in public.”
The article goes on to say that letting a biometric company, like Clear make public health policies would be a huge mistake.
“If Clear’s Health Pass is widely adopted, it gives a private organization immense power over the implementation of public health policy. That’s especially risky at a time when there are no nationwide public health policies for reopening the country.”
Do we really want to let Google, Apple, Microsoft and Clear shape our health policies? Big Tech and the biometrics industry are masters at public manipulation. They are making billions of dollars off of our personal information.
Allowing Big Tech and biometric companies to dictate who can and cannot work is a dystopian nightmare, unlike anything anyone has ever imagined.
The parallels to China are striking. How long before biometric companies propose businesses require employees and customers to show their “green light” status?
In China, residents are required to download an AliPay app that shows businesses, restaurants and malls a person’s coronavirus status.
“A green light lets you in anywhere. A yellow light could send you into home confinement. The dreaded red light throws a person into a strict two-week quarantine at a hotel.”
A nation held hostage by fear and run by corporate interests who profit from national surveillance is a terrifying prospect. Can social credit scoring be far behind?
I took up investigative blogging because there are very few independent reporters left in our country.
I am also a member of the Digital Fourth. (https://warrantless.org/)
- Company Turns Any Camera Into an Automatic License Plate Reader - September 10, 2021
- Federal Surveillance State Empowers TSA to Control Entire U.S. Transit System - August 26, 2021
- Biden Gives “Five Eyes” Surveillance Consortium Access to Everyone’s Social Media - August 3, 2021