Public Security vs Personal Privacy: Analysis of PeduliLindungi from Open Government and Surveillance State Perspectives

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has driven the development of the implementation of surveillance states in various countries worldwide. As various countries go all out to control the spread of the pandemic, the central pillar used in controlling the pandemic is tracking social mobility and collecting citizen data on a massive scale. The development of digital surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic has increasingly heated the debate regarding the dilemma between public security and citizens’ privacy. Indonesia’s PeduliLindungi is a mobile phone application that played a central role as the instrument for pandemic surveillance. This study aims to analyze PeduliLindungi as the object of research. The analysis focuses on whether PeduliLindungi is more likely based on the principles of open government or surveillance state. This study concludes that when viewed based on the features of the PeduliLindungi application, the terms and conditions of use of the application, to the privacy policy applied by the PeduliLindungi application, the PeduliLindungi application is more oriented toward open government rather than a surveillance state. Keywords: pandemic COVID-19, public security, personal privacy, PeduliLindungi, open government, surveillance state