Category: Public Policy and National Security

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COVID-19: who is afraid of patients’ geolocalization?

“Experts” and public institutions are reluctant to use of geolocation data held by mobile phone operators to backtrack COVID-19 infected people. The reason is that as “the cell-phone mesh is too wide” and GPS is not precise, the data obtained would be unreliable. This fact, according to them, would justify the use of other instruments – and in particular, of “apps” – to be installed more or less mandatory on people’s smartphones.

It is unclear if these “experts” considered that not everyone could or wants to have a “smart” phone. Therefore, more than a few could go around with an old “stupid” but less intrusive mobile phone affecting the overall efficiency of the solution. Continue reading “COVID-19: who is afraid of patients’ geolocalization?”

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COVID-19: from Italy a (bad) lesson on public order

As I have written since the beginning of the COVID-19 emergency, the management of public order and security is just as important as the health aspects. It is essential to prevent the pressure on citizens from quarantine, fear of the economic consequences of the crisis and the obsessive hammering of random numbers in the media from triggering riots.

The first signs sparkled at the beginning of the crisis with the frantic race to hoard food and foodstuffs. Now the “quantum leap” is the direct and group assault on supermarkets openly organized via social networks happened in Palermo, Sicily. Continue reading “COVID-19: from Italy a (bad) lesson on public order”

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COVID-19: the Italian Communication Authority to put users’ control duties on platforms and not on ISP

The non-news is spreading in Italy that a report by TGR Leonardo (a National Broadcasting News programme aimed at divulgation of science) in 2015 exposed the creation, in a Sino-American project, of a COVID extracted from a bat and able to infect humans directly.

Although the video is original and the information herein is correct, the effect of its “exhumation” from the Italian Broadcasting Service (RAI) archives has caused a tide of irrational reactions. From global-plot alarms to more timid no-comment link (obviously, to be able to “self-defend” in case the video was altered or fake. Continue reading “COVID-19: the Italian Communication Authority to put users’ control duties on platforms and not on ISP”

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COVID-19: why the Italian government-required “self-certification” doesn’t work

Nobody these days wants to listen to hair-splitting legalese. Still, when this COVID-19 tragedy is over, the survivors hopefully question what happened to our Constitutional rights. Maybe some scholars investigate the flaws of the emergency legislation, or the risks the democratic institutions took, or how the bureaucracy monster has not given up his lust for the sacrifices that feed him.

The case of the “self-certification” of the path and the reasons justifying the departure from home that authorities imposed is the most obvious example. Continue reading “COVID-19: why the Italian government-required “self-certification” doesn’t work”

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COVID-19 and “slow Internet complaints” in Italy

Users’ complaints about the poor speed of the Internet connections gain momentum. Petitions, newspaper articles, and timely and inevitable initiatives to “get compensation” accuse operators and Internet providers of not providing “enough bandwidth”. In times of crisis, they say, this “slows down smart-working”, but it isn’t likely so. Continue reading “COVID-19 and “slow Internet complaints” in Italy”