Framing the Pandemic and the Rise of the Digital Surveillance State

Abstract

The pandemic caused by the SARS-COV-2 virus has provided a pretext for
many countries of the world to extend executive powers, and their digital
surveillance capacities in particular. Aiming to identify how different
regimes frame digital surveillance, this paper employs qualitative content
analysis to compare the government framing of digital surveillance in India,
Israel and Singapore. Although due to their different working dynamics,
one would expect democracies and autocracies to frame digital surveillance
in di!erent ways, our findings reveal an overlap between liberal and illiberal
rhetoric across the cases and point to unexplored illiberal peculiarities
within the category of ‘democratic backsliders.’ We conclude by cautiously
speculating how heightened extents of digital surveillance and tracking
may become the new normal across regime types, and how governments
might exploit and recycle these same frames to justify digital surveillance
after the COVID-19 crisis is over.