Concerns over the Indian government’s moves to undermine citizens’ digital privacy, and the need to raise awareness in an engaging way, inspired filmmaker Varun Kurtkoti to use animation as a storytelling medium.
In many Asia-Pacific countries, contact tracing apps are now doubling as vaccine passports, used by governments to enforce various restrictions on travel and entry to a wide variety of venues and establishments. But the widespread waning of vaccine protection against infection and transmission requires a debate on whether vaccine passports are effective as a pandemic management tool – or merely a form of theatre that opens up a host of privacy, and security issues.
Do contact tracing apps help reduce the spread of COVID-19? As their usage has become ubiquitous, there is a trend towards more features that are not related to or necessary for contact tracing being introduced in these apps, such as vaccine certification and third-party integrations with commercial services without due regard to privacy, security, and accessibility.
In line with the international celebration of World Internet Day, EngageMedia on October 30 launched Tech Tales: Films about Digital Rights in the Asia-Pacific, a collection of eight films that highlight human rights stories in the digital age.
On this episode of Pretty Good Podcast, we chat with Simon Harmon and Sam de Silva from the Loki Foundation, makers of private messaging app Session, on the benefits of and challenges to using secure tools for communications.
