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Technology and Pandemics: The Post-2000 Olympic Games

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International Security and the Olympic Games, 1972–2020

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Sport and Politics ((PASSP))

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Abstract

This eighth chapter covers the Olympic Games following the year 2000 and analyzes how some of the themes explored throughout the book, including technology and the use of the military to provide security, continue to influence the Olympic Games. Additionally, the cyberattack on the Opening Ceremonies of the 2018 Opening Ceremonies will be analyzed. The chapter analyzes previous outbreaks of disease at the Olympics and how COVID-19 pandemic influenced the concept of “security” for both the organizers of Tokyo 2020 and the IOC. Another theme of this chapter is on the redeployment of security technology designed for the Olympic Games around the globe as host nations serve as a security tradeshow for government interested in purchasing the latest security technology.

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Notes

  1. 1.

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  4. 4.

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  5. 5.

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    “Over 400 Million Cyberattacks were Attempted During Tokyo Games,” Kyodo News.

  18. 18.

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  23. 23.

    Dion-Schwarz et al., Olympic-Caliber Cybersecurity: Lessons for Safeguarding the 2020 Games and Other Major Events, 40.

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  32. 32.

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  33. 33.

    Mike Head, “Australian Government Uses Sydney Olympics to Strengthen Military Powers,” World Socialist Web Site, August 5, 2000, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2000/08/olym-a05.html.

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    British Parliament, London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 (2006): http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/12/contents. Hassan, David. “Securing the Olympics: At What Price?,” Sport in Society 17, no. 5 (2014): 628–39.

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  36. 36.

    Boyle and Haggerty, “Privacy Games: The Vancouver Olympics, Privacy and Surveillance.”.

  37. 37.

    US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation (Lessons Learned from Security at Past Olympic Games. Washington, D.C.: GPO, May 4, 2004).

  38. 38.

    US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

  39. 39.

    Thornburg, Robert H. “Face Recognition Technology: The Potential Orwellian Implications and Constitutionality of Current Uses Under the Fourth Amendment,” J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 20 (2001): 321.

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  41. 41.

    “Olympics Group Studies Super Bowl Video Surveillance,” Wall Street Journal, February 5, 2001.

  42. 42.

    Siobhan Gorman and Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, “New Details Show Broader NSA Surveillance Reach,” The Wall Street Journal, August 20, 2013.

  43. 43.

    “SID Trains for Athens Olympics,” Snowden Archive, August 15, 2003. Accessed April 18, 2020. https://snowdenarchive.cjfe.org/greenstone/collect/snowden1/index/assoc/HASHd1ad.dir/doc.pdf.

  44. 44.

    Vassilis Prevelakis and Diomidis Spinellis, “The Athens Affair” in IEEE Spectrum, vol. 44, No. 7, Jul. 2007, 26-33.

  45. 45.

    Aggelos Petropoulos, “Americans and Greeks Started the 2004 Wiretaps Together,” Ekathimerini, September 29, 2015. Accessed April 15, 2020. https://www.ekathimerini.com/202026/interactive/ekathimerini/special-report/americans-and-greeks-started-the-2004-wiretaps-together#webdoc.

  46. 46.

    Petropoulos, “Americans and Greeks Started the 2004 Wiretaps Together,”.

  47. 47.

    Paul Mozur, Jonah M. Kessel, and Melissa Chan, “Made in China, Exported to the World: The Surveillance State,” New York Times, April 24, 2019.

  48. 48.

    Mozur, Kessel, Chan, “Made in China.”.

  49. 49.

    Stephen Graham, “Olympics 2012 Security: welcome to lockdown London.” The Guardian, March 12, 2012. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/mar/12/london-olympics-security-lockdown-london

  50. 50.

    Gold, “Biometrics Fit to Secure the London Olympics.”.

  51. 51.

    David M. Herszenhorn, “Heightened Security, Visible and Invisible, Blankets the Olympics,” New York Times, February 13, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/sports/olympics/heightened-security-visible-and-invisible-blankets-the-olympics.html

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    John Sugden, “Watched by the Games: Surveillance and Security at the Olympics,” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 47, no. 3 (2012): 414–29. Watching the Games: Politics, Power and Representation. John Sugden and Alan Tomlinson, eds. (London: Routledge, 2012).

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    See, Samatas, “Security and Surveillance in the Athens 2004 Olympics: Some Lessons from a Troubled Story”; Minas Samatas, “Surveilling the 2004 Athens Olympics in the Aftermath of 9/11: International Pressures and Domestic Implications,” Security Games: Surveillance and Control at Mega-Events, C.J. Bennett and K. Haggerty, ed 2014.

  55. 55.

    Government Accountability Office, Olympic Games: Costs to Plan, 26.

  56. 56.

    Government Accountability Office, Olympic Games: Costs to Plan, 26.

  57. 57.

    Liu Shaowu. “Thinking of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games” Safety Environment and the Construction of Technical Defense System.” China Security Products Information 4 (2004): 26-28.

  58. 58.

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  60. 60.

    Shaowu. “Thinking of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games” “Safety Environment and the Construction of Technical Defense System”.

  61. 61.

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  63. 63.

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  64. 64.

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  65. 65.

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  69. 69.

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  77. 77.

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Duckworth, A. (2022). Technology and Pandemics: The Post-2000 Olympic Games. In: International Security and the Olympic Games, 1972–2020. Palgrave Studies in Sport and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05133-3_8

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