How Covid-19 Turned College Campuses Into Surveillance Machines
From simple location-tracking apps to buttons that measure biometrics, college campuses have amped up surveillance in response to Covid-19
Vassar College student E.L. received a notification on his phone this month with a gentle reminder to turn on his device’s location tracking. The junior, who asked that only his initials be used, is one of the 2,120 students who returned to Vassar’s campus for in-person instruction this fall semester. The message, which came from the school’s official app, referred to PathCheck GPS+, a contact-tracing app created at MIT that is now being piloted at colleges around the country.
“If you download the PathCheck app (iOs/Android), make sure to fully enable location services when it asks, or make the change manually through your device settings,” read the notification. It went on to assure students that their location data would be saved exclusively on their phone, with the option of sharing it with health officials in the event they test positive for the coronavirus.
In an interview with OneZero, E.L. said the school’s partnership with the PathCheck app felt “super weird” and “very police-adjacent.” Still, he had expected some sort of surveillance to happen as a…
