In a world where people are now products to business, the government must ask what they can do to safeguard consumers against the potentially invasive and unnecessary surveillance techniques used by corporates around the globe.

Surveillance Capitalism, a term coined by Shoshana Zuboff is the activity of monetising data gathered through surveillance. Kevin Kelly notes that if there is an uneven exchange between the business and the consumer, an asymmetry is created that distorts the perception of trust in the market.

To correct this asymmetry, disclosure, process transparency and conveyance of direct benefit to the individual is necessary – otherwise known as coveillance. This technique has the potential of a number of process and public protection measures in the Government sector, for example through public health improvements, disease prevention and biosecurity.