With Canada's impending introduction of Digital ID and the mandatory vaccine mandates Canadians endured as a result of COVID19, one is forced to ask if we are truly free or if it is the government that runs our lives - and if the government has a right to do so?
Below are a few thoughts regarding privacy, government's reach, and today’s society.
Forced Mandates
In January 2022, truck drivers in Canada began a protest that would sweep across the entire globe - The Freedom Convoy. Their demand was this: stop forcing truck drivers (and Canadians at large) to get the COVID19 vaccine. Employees who chose not to take the vaccine - from healthcare workers to teachers and factory workers - lost their jobs because they wanted to demonstrate their God-given autonomy over their own bodies. Children were first kept out the schools for months and then when schools eventually reopened, students were forced to mask for multiple hours a day. Research has shown that these conditions gravely affected the literacy rates of students and increased learning loss. These conditions also increased mental health crises and substance use across the population at large.
Growing up in Nigeria, vaccinations were a part of my life from age zero. From measles to smallpox and mumps, it is usual for Nigerians to want to protect their infants against deadly diseases. So at first when I saw the wave of Canadians fighting the vaccinations, I judged them as reckless and selfish. But then the “science” began to speak - and at first where they had said that the vaccine stopped transmission, they were now saying it only reduced transmission. And now we are at a junction where the vaccinated have no advantage over the un-vaccinated. So what was the point of the vaccines? The rate at which the vaccines were rolled out and the amount of money made by Pharma-Giants like Pfizer and Moderna makes one wonder.
Digital ID
The current information regarding Canada’s plan for Digital ID seems harmless enough. So I am screenshotting it incase it changes:
Accessed: Nov. 21, 2022
Accessed: Nov. 21, 2022
The government of Ontario states that Digital ID is necessary to improve and security:
“Digital ID is a convenient and easy identification solution that’s made with the security and encryption we need to securely perform transactions and access services online.”
However, I am not too sure how much you want to trust a government that arrested pastors who kept their church open, froze the bank accounts of people who didn’t want a vaccine in their bodies, enabled the Emergencies Act, and arrested protesters, essentially labeling them terrorists or anarchists.
As Market Mania points out, digital ID is currently in full effect in China (a country currently ruled by the founding and sole ruling party, Communist Party of China), and Chinese people whose social credit scores are not up to par are not even permitted to leave their country.
Facial Recognition Software on Phones
Hear me out, okay? But don’t we already have a form of digital ID in operation if your fingerprint or your face can unlock your phone? And many apps (especially monetary apps that should be the most secure like PayPal and your banking app) now allow you to access your account from your phone with just your fingerprint. This doesn’t feel very safe or secure.
As Tom Marazzo pointed out in an interview, being able to unlock your phone with facial recognition means that a rogue police officer can easily gain access to your phone - for whatever cooked-up reason - should you be arrested. And there is a part of my over-thinking brain that wants to believe that my fingerprint information is already either stored by my phone’s manufacturer someplace in the interwebs or on a server in a cool, dark room somewhere. I cannot shake this feeling off. But maybe I am overthinking it.
But just in case you think I'm taking it too far: the fact that your phone is able to be updated remotely shows that there remains a connection between your phone (anywhere it is on the planet) and its manufacturer – and that connection is made possible by the internet.
Social Media
Like I wrote here: please stop sharing private information on social media in the name of “authenticity”. If you view the average public social media profile, within a few minutes you can cull basic things about the owner of that account:
Their name
Gender/Sex (because these two things are the same thing) *
Occupation
Country of origin
General geographic location etc.
If these are the information the naked eye can pull from your profile, what do you think the owners of these applications know about you? Do you know that Facebook has a non-exclusive, royalty-free worldwide license to any picture you post on their platform?
The Magic Phone Number
I wrote about Gmail being gung-ho regarding wanting you to link a phone number or alternative email address to your Gmail account in this article:
Turns out that Twitter does the same thing; I am currently locked out of my Twitter account because I have not - and will not - give them a phone number.
The illusion is to make people feel that putting in a phone number will make them safer and will increase their privacy and help them easily ward off efforts by "hackers" who might try to gain access to their account; but what I am sure these technocratic elites are instead doing is actually data mining their customers and building expensive digital profiles on them. So that when they look up my name “Ibiene Bidiaque” in their database, for example, what they see is a list of all the phone numbers I have ever had (or linked to any online platform), all the email addresses I have ever used to open any online account, all the social media accounts I have ever opened using any of those email addresses or phone numbers, and then soon they will be able to link my driver's license (if I have uploaded that to any “secure” platform). Take this and multiply it by millions of customers. This is the future.
Heavy Surveillance
The average person in the UK is caught by CCTV or some sort of surveillance camera at least 70 times a day. The UK has about 1.85 million cameras whirling at any given time. How exciting.
We surveille because we want to prevent crime - that was what was used to sell CCTV and that is what has happened because perpetrators of violent crimes are often caught using the forensic evidence provided by CCTV. But now the government is using cameras to monitor its citizens. Do you know that the Canadian government uses facial recognition software in Toronto’s Pearson Airport and captures over millions of travelers without their consent?
Location: On
Please turn your device's location off. Again, this option exists under the guise of protecting you in case your phone goes missing or in order to give you "tailored search results" per your location, but it is Google that you need protection from because they are tracking you. Apps don't need to know what city or country you are in. Please stop giving these organizations so much access to you.
Google Maps & Co.
Following from the above, Google Maps knows where you live, where you work, and what your favourite restaurant is. Google knows where you are at any given time via your GPS settings. Again, your location doesn’t have to be on 24/7; you can turn it off and then only allow the app you are currently using access your device’s location when you need to. This also applies to seemingly harmless apps like Uber Eats and Skip The Dishes.
Conclusion
We have exchanged common sense and our right to privacy for ease and supposed "security", and it is not at all a fair exchange.
* please watch Matt Walsh’s What Is A Woman? for more on this. And you’re very welcome.
Comments