Japan’s Olympic Security Balancing Act Satisfies Few

Struggling businesses were forced to close temporarily around the Olympic venues. Olympic visitors ordered to install offensive apps and allow GPS tracking. Minders singled out hotels to prevent participants from coming into contact with ordinary Japanese or going to restaurants to sample sushi.

Japan’s vast security apparatus has raised complaints that the nation will look more like authoritarian North Korea or China than one of the world’s most powerful, vibrant democracies during the weeks of the Games.

However, Big Brother isn’t much of a concern for many here. It is that all the increased precautions will not be enough to prevent the rapidly spreading coronavirus variant of the estimated 85,000 athletes, officials, journalists and other workers arriving in Japan to a largely unvaccinated population already battling rising cases.

“It’s all based on the honor system, and it’s raising concerns that media people and other participants may leave their hotels to eat in Ginza,” Takeshi Saiki, an opposition lawmaker, said about Japan’s lax border controls said in. So far, most Olympic athletes and other participants have been exempted from specific quarantine requirements.

There have been regular breakdowns in security as the enormity of the police’s efforts to so many visitors becomes clear – and the opening ceremony looms. The Japanese press is flooded with reports of people related to the Olympics testing positive for the coronavirus. Photos and social media posts have shown foreigners breaking mask rules associated with sports and drinking in public, smoking in airports – even if the bios are accurate, posting on dating apps.

“There are big holes in the bubble,” said another opposition lawmaker, Ayaka Shiomura, referring to the so-called “bubbles” that are supposed to separate Olympic participants from the rest of the country.

The pandemic has tested democracies around the world as they try to strike a balance between the need to protect basic rights and the national imperative to control the disease that spreads when large numbers of people gather.

However, few places have faced higher stakes – or closer global scrutiny – than Tokyo during July and August. The government, well aware of repeated household polls that strongly opposes the Games, argues that its security and surveillance measures are important as it tries to pull off an Olympics during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. is.

But as the restrictions are tested by a growing number of visitors, officials have been blamed for doing too much, and too little.

The government and the organizers of the Games are “treating visitors as if they are potential criminals,” Chizuko Ueno, a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Tokyo, said on YouTube.

There is also outrage over a widespread feeling that Japan is facing this balancing act because the International Olympic Committee requires the Games, regardless of the virus situation, to receive billions of dollars in media revenue vital to its survival. .

“The Olympics are conducted as an IOC business. Not only the Japanese people, but others around the world were put off by the Olympics, because we all saw the true nature of the Olympics and the IOC through the pandemic,” climber Ken Noguchi told the online edition of the Nikkan Gendai newspaper Told.

Meanwhile, senior sports editors at major international media companies have called on organizers to “reconsider some measures that go beyond what is necessary to keep participants and residents safe,” adding that they are “on the personal side of our partners”. show a disregard for privacy and technical security.”

Japan has fared better than many countries during the pandemic, but the Olympians would come only months after a coronavirus spike saw some Japanese hospitals collapse as ICUs filled with the sick. While the surge has declined, cases are rising enough for Tokyo to declare another state of emergency.

One of the highest-profile security problems came last month when a member of a Ugandan team visiting Japan tested positive for the more infectious Delta variant. They were dropped off at the airport, but the rest of the nine-man team was allowed to travel more than 500 kilometers (300 mi) in a chartered bus to their pre-Olympic camp, where a second Ugandan tested positive. Tested, forcing the team and seven city officials and drivers in close contact with them to self-isolate.

A member of the Ugandan team went missing on Friday, raising further questions about the surveillance of Olympic participants. On Saturday, organizers said the first resident of the Olympic Village had tested positive for COVID-19. Officials said it was not an athlete, but a non-resident of Japan.

So what restrictions do visitors to the Olympics face?

For the first 14 days in Japan, Olympic visitors are prohibited from using public transport and visiting bars, tourist spots and most restaurants outside the athletes’ village. They cannot even walk, or go anywhere, in fact, it is not specifically mentioned in the activity plans submitted in advance. There are some exceptions authorized by the organizers: specially designated convenience stores, takeaway places and, in rare cases, some restaurants that have private rooms.

Athletes who are tested daily for the coronavirus will be isolated at the athletes’ village and are expected to remain there, or in lock-down bubbles at similar venues or training sites. Rule breakers can be sent home or fined and lose the right to participate in games.

Anyone associated with the Olympics will be asked to install two apps when entering Japan. One is the immigration and health reporting app, and the other is a contact tracing app that uses Bluetooth. They will also have to consent to the organizers to allow the use of GPS to monitor their movements and contacts via their smartphone if there is an infection or a breach of the rules.

“We are not going to monitor behavior all the time,” said Toshiro Muto, CEO of the organizing committee. “The point is, however, if problems related to their activity should occur, then since the GPS function will remain on, we will be able to verify their movements.”

Japan also plans to install human monitors in places and hotels, although it is not yet clear how many.

“We will control every entry and exit. We will have a system that will not allow anyone to go out freely,” said Olympic Minister Tamayo Marukawa.

Other countries, both democratic and autocratic, have also attempted to control and monitor behavior and businesses during the pandemic.

For example, in the United States, NFL teams track their athletes in team facilities. South Korean health officials have aggressively used smartphone GPS data, credit-card transaction records and surveillance video to find and isolate potential virus carriers. Tracking apps are used to track thousands of people who are home quarantined.

In China, there has been little or no opposition to mask mandates, confining millions of people to their homes, and nationwide case tracing. North Korea has closed its borders even more tightly, skipped the Olympics and canceled or severely curtailed access to foreign diplomats, aid workers and outside journalists.

While security restrictions in Japan will be troublesome for visitors, they can also hit the locals hard.

Fencing instructor Hiroshi Kato said he worries he will lose more business than he did during the pandemic as he has been ordered to move from the building where he will be to the main Olympic Stadium from July 1 to September 19. work from. For unspecified security reasons.

“I feel helpless,” he said in an interview. “In order to hold the Games safely, some restrictions are understandable … but (the organizers) knew this for a long time and could probably provide some assistance for us.”