Every Breath You Take, I’ll Be Watching You. Explicit Surveillance and Algorithmic Countersurveillance in Healthcare

In this chapter we explore resistance practices (countersurveillance) applied to algorithmic surveillance in the health domain, with a specific focus on the Italian contact-tracing app “Immuni”. Countersurveillance is the task of making surveillance difficult or avoiding it and can be employed by individuals and communities to protect privacy, civil rights, and against abuses regarding personal information and sensitive data in public spaces, online and offline. To this purpose, we explore the practices of resistance users develop around the Immuni app specifically developed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. To do that we implemented an explorative qualitative analysis of Reddit conversations, aimed at: (a) mapping the online discourses emerging around Immuni, and (b) identifying possible strategies of resistance towards the app. Our data show that users, through the online discourse they articulate on Reddit, express three main concerns about Immuni: privacy, distrust towards the Italian State, and technical functioning.