Police Lt. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar, chief of the PNP Joint Task Force COVID Shield, clarified Sunday that the social media monitoring on quarantine violators would be limited to viral photos and videos and reports from concerned citizens.
Eleazar said Saturday that the PNP would “regularly monitor” various social media platforms to identify individuals who violate quarantine protocols.
“We will not invade the privacy of our netizens in posting. What we will monitor are violations like public drinking sessions and parties because these are prohibited and dangerous,” he said in an interview with radio station dzBB.
He added there was a huge possibility of COVID-19 transmissions in such activities.
The PNP official explained the police social media monitoring would be limited to reports sent to the agency’s official accounts such as Facebook and Twitter, and viral pictures and videos. “These are what we will act on,” he said.
“We are encouraging reporting to the police, strengthening our barangay reporting system. We can encourage the barangay, the community, to report contrary to what some people think that we would be spying on their social media accounts. We do not know how to spy,” he said.
Social media monitoring limited to viral photos, videos
Eleazar added: “We are talking about quarantine rules and regulations. We are talking about our police stations monitoring their own existing Facebook accounts. We do not have that capability to spy [on violations of] quarantine rules and regulations. We are too busy for that.”
“Clearly we will not invade their privacy. We care nothing for what they do inside their homes with regard to quarantine rules and regulations,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), any form of surveillance, “must be subject to the standards of necessity, legitimacy, and proportionality.”
“Otherwise, violation of these standards, especially if not founded on legal measures, may lead to offenses against the people’s rights. This is a scenario that we wish to avoid, noting that we look upon the police as law enforcers and not as the first ones [to] breach laws,” CHR spokesperson Jacqueline de Guia said in a statement.