‘Big Brother’ focus on social distancing was considered in Covid early days

THE Government considered using ‘Big Brother’ style technology to monitor people’s compliance with Covid-19 rules.

Records obtained under Freedom of Information show Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s department examined plans to use a social distance index (SDI) to measure people’s adherence to public-health guidelines.

The SDI would have captured mobile phone data by counting phones in tiles of 25 metres, every 15 minutes, to monitor adherence to social distancing, ‘crowd hotspots’ and travel, documents reveal.

It was one of several ideas floated during discussions between the Department of the Taoiseach and consultancy firm EY in late 2020.

The records also uncover plans to set up a Covid-19 nerve centre called ‘Room 350’ to monitor disease spread and compliance with restrictions.

Three daily briefings would be delivered at the centre, with deepdive reports carried out weekly.

An alert system was also discussed, with one message saying, ‘WhatsApp updated in the event of agreed specific criteria being breached. Criteria focusing on case numbers accelerating or hospital approaching capacity’.

And the records cast new light on how Covid-19 was spreading in the run-up to Christmas 2020, when infections soared, leading to a wave of illness and death early last year – illustrating how GAA county-final wins were a driver of infections in two counties.

The proposal to use the social distance index came with a warning that ‘clearly, care [was] required to balance with citizen rights’, although it was noted that a successful ‘proof of value’ trial of the technology had already taken place in London.

Ultimately, the plan was not followed through with the Taoiseach’s department saying the records had been part of a ‘springboard for a frank discussion’ on what was known as the ‘1 Government Centre Project’ (1GC) to deal with the pandemic.

The department originally refused to release most of the records, but relented after the case was appealed to the Information Commissioner.

Exploratory work took place on the index in both Cork and Dublin, according to presentations that were released.

However, there were ‘specific quality issues’ with the data available for Dublin.

The records also discuss how county final wins had been a key driver of infection in counties Cavan and Meath.

A later slideshow said there had been reports of celebrations and ‘lock-ins’ with a growing rate of ‘private house’ outbreaks.

One briefing also pondered anomalies in how infection rates had changed in Kildare, Laois, and Offaly – all of which were subject to local lockdowns due to outbreaks linked to meat processing plants.

‘The disease incidence curves for each county differs,’ said a briefing.

‘Offaly and Laois appeared to recover more quickly.’

A later briefing said disease prevalence had started high in the south and middle of Kildare, then seeded the north of the county before cases began to grow in adjoining parts of West Dublin.

A significant cross-border impact was also detailed, which most likely related to people travelling to the North and bringing disease back.

A briefing said: ‘Donegal used as an example and disease incidence in Ballyshannon vs Donegal Town vs Letterkenny/Buncrana (likened to ‘suburbs of Derry’ in terms of social activity etc). Numbers increase dramatically as get close to border.’

Mask wearing was also reported to be lower in Donegal but there was a much lower link between disease spread and sporting activities – not least because the county GAA final was cancelled.

Questions were also raised over introducing ‘local restrictions’ for counties or regions with higher infection rates.

‘It is unlikely that the Government would impose localised restrictions as communication is difficult and [there is a] risk of social tourism,’ said a briefing.

Another presentation described how increases in local areas were often being driven by ‘single specific events’.

It said super-spreaders associated with these events tended to be younger, have caught the disease in a social setting, and have far higher close contacts than average.

The average age of these ‘superspreaders’ was 34, slightly more likely to be female, and with around 5.8 close contacts each.

The same presentation said simple advice from Dr Philip Nolan of NPHET to ‘halve your social contacts’ was effective.

In an information note, the department said that throughout the pandemic, restrictions had been introduced and eased as appropriate.

They said: ‘As part of this process, and to inform decisionmaking, information from a variety of sources is used.’

They said records were sometimes a work in progress or were accompanied by oral briefings or other contextual material and that they should be read in this context.