Pippa returns with the latest on surveillance and information on how to do a Freedom Of Information Request.
Pippa returns with the latest on surveillance and information on how to do a Freedom Of Information Request.
April 2018
The data we share with companies online has become a hot-button issue, but new technologies could soon be scanning us as we go about our day.
That’s the claim made by a neuroscientist, who believes that devices in the real world will start gathering unprecedented levels of information about us.
Our bodies give off various signals that can be scanned and analysed by advanced computer systems, revealing everything from our current mood to our overall health.
In a similar way to wearable gadgets already available, future devices could be set up throughout public spaces to harvest this valuable bio-data.
Because they are part of our surrounding environment there will be no way for us to opt out or ditch the technology and new regulations will be needed, she warns.
Read more here
A panel of academic and public sector experts are set to study a potential deployment of facial recognition technology by Leicestershire Police.
The study will form part of the new ethics committee’s duties.
Last month, senior police officials described the tech as significant a breakthrough for policing as the development of fingerprinting a century ago and, more recently, DNA coding.
Speaking to the Leicester Mercury, Leicestershire’s Chief Constable Simon Cole said the tech – a portable NeoFace surveillance solution made by NEC Corporation – could identify wanted criminals almost instantly.
Facial recognition and biometric databases have been a reality in technology for decades, and have been used overseas by the military to assist in occupying potentially hostile populations in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Populations there not only face the possibility of becoming a statical civilian casualty, but are processed and tagged like cattle as well.
Now, that paradigm is coming home to roost – as spy agencies like the NSA have long planned.
Biometrics are designed for use in mass populations here in America and throughout the Western world, not just war torn locales. According to the NY Times:
Facial recognition software, which American military and intelligence agencies used for years in Iraq and Afghanistan to identify potential terrorists, is being eagerly adopted by dozens of police departments around the country to pursue drug dealers, prostitutes and other conventional criminal suspects. But because it is being usedwith few guidelines and with little oversight or public disclosure, it is raising questions of privacy and concerns about potential misuse.
Never a country known for its human rights and civil liberties, Kuwait is now attempting to take the lead in the Gulf for the country most integrated with the technological control grid and biometric surveillance state.
This is because the small nation recently announced the passage of a law that mandates every person residing in Kuwait must submit to a DNA sample that will be stored in a massive database upon penalty of fines and jail time.
Kuwait has 1.3 million citizens that will be subject to the law but its 2.9 million foreign residents are subject as well.
Any person who refuses to submit to the DNA tests and data mining operation will be subject to $33,000 in fines and up to one year in prison. Any person who provides a fake sample will face up to seven years.
Kuwait now stands as the only country in the world that makes DNA tests and participation in a DNA database compulsory.
For how long?
http://www.activistpost.com/2015/07/kuwait-mandates-dna-database-for-all.html
