I keep hearing about the creation of Tracers and Trackers which are thousands of folks that, upon a Covid diagnosis, will trace all the people that person had been in contact with.
Anyone visualising this as a group of kind good Samaritans are dilusional.
These sweet "tracers" may have the authority to have people arrested that don't comply with new tracking rules.
May sound crazy but these things are almost to shutdown once created.
This, as well as the deployment of facial recognition software, could present a major challenge to our concept of privacy and personal rights. That said, some temporary compromises of personal rights may be justified if it can be proven to have a positive impact on public health.
Kind of like the Patriot Act version of Covid.
In Greenwich Connecticut they are unveiling surveillance drones designed to track and inform on people with a fever. Blue states are already using Chionese made drones for surveillance and in massachusetts I actually saw a vehicle with louspeakers ordering people to stay inside. Wish i had a grenade.
I agree with the OP that once started it cannot be stopped. Both businesses and government would get addicted to the information and the opportunities to misuse it.
OTOH, people have already given up so much liberty and freedom willingly to the internet that I fully expect this will happen. Just another step in the progression and what a great excuse - "we're just protecting you from this evil virus ..."
^ almost impossible