Politics List
Even more alarming predictions if you are "technically-minded" and can follow (and believe) this "facial recognition" stuff, then read this at the risk of going completely paranoid and off your trolley with worry about the future for our kids and civilisation.
The trouble is - he's right!
IMHO!
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"Ban the Burka" and Facial Recognition CCTV schemes in Europe
We should all wonder why this proposals for "banning the burqua" have been brought forward in so may European countries at the same time.
It is really quite hard to get legislation introduced - it is generally a very slow and difficult process. This has to have been kicked off a year ago in all these different countries - it can't just have happened simultaneously in so many countries. What this strongly suggests is, the current wave of legislation must have had coordination.
Far from being a matter of controlling Muslim extremists, this legislation may be the harbinger of a generalised surveillance state.
We could be very close to the point where facial recognition is launched on Europe's CCTV systems.
If such a move was being considered, it would be an essential preparatory to ban people from covering the faces, to hide or prevent recognition.
Such legislation, banning face-coverings already exists in certain European states, in respect of political marches and rallies - the police have a right to be able to identify everyone taking part.
As mentioned in a previous email, the EU has been making sustained investment in facial recognition technology.
How realistic is it to expect generalised facial recognition?
Facial recognition has become a mature technology,It is really quite hard to get legislation introduced - it is generally a very slow and difficult process. This has to have been kicked off a year ago in all these different countries - it can't just have happened simultaneously in so many countries. What this strongly suggests is, the current wave of legislation must have had coordination.
Far from being a matter of controlling Muslim extremists, this legislation may be the harbinger of a generalised surveillance state.
We could be very close to the point where facial recognition is launched on Europe's CCTV systems.
If such a move was being considered, it would be an essential preparatory to ban people from covering the faces, to hide or prevent recognition.
Such legislation, banning face-coverings already exists in certain European states, in respect of political marches and rallies - the police have a right to be able to identify everyone taking part.
As mentioned in a previous email, the EU has been making sustained investment in facial recognition technology.
How realistic is it to expect generalised facial recognition?
It is already in use in certain high-profile CCTV systems, such as airports
Heathrow, Terminal 5, which opened in 2007, was designed around a facial recognition CCTV system being able to recognise passengers. The airport was designed without segregation of domestic and internal passengers, arrivals and departures, because the surveillance system was effective enough to provide an equivalent level of security and control. This is a mature technology.
Note that this was developed as an EU sponsored project - TINA - The INtelligent Airport
Facial recognition is a system that can be retro-fitted to existing CCTV systems. Facial recognition can be implemented quickly, because it is software rather than hardware - providing the system has digital cameras, facial recognition can be added easily.
What seems to be the most likely scenario is that we will not be identified by our faces alone - multiple recognition will be used, taking electronic information from sources such as mobile phones and RFID clothing tags (see also this and this) - facial recognition will only be used for verification of identity. Facial recognition will merely complete the chain of surveillance with a positive visual ID. This is how the system works at Heathrow and other airports - passengers are given an RFID tag to wear (in their boarding pass) and the system follows these, identifying any person without a pass, a dropped pass (any pass without a person) and any person who does not match their pass.
If you look at the visual surveillance AI tool (or "Intelligent Agent") - HERMES - this is specifically designed to combine data from multiple sources, such as different cameras, and totally different information sources, such as mobile phone location data, police communications, etc. HERMES is designed to integrated a suite surveillance tools, including a number of sub-packages such as behaviour recognition (INDECT, ADABTS), facial recognition and, as mentioned, data from multiple external sources (e.g. RFID, mobile phones, etc.)
(Note that in typical EU fashion, as though deliberately to cause confusion, there are several different projects and exercises named HERMES. Similarly, there are several different projects called ISIS, the name of the facial recognition package.
RFID in clothing in itself will form an effective and comprehensive surveillance system, when combined with the Internet of Things, an integrated system to report every time an RFID tag passes a reader or checkpoint, such as at the entrance to a shop / store. The EU is promoting both the widespread use ofRFID in clothing and other everyday objects, and promoting the Internet of Things
So, why am I writing to you?
- Don't cheerlead for the so-called "burqua-ban". Don't support legislation that would make it a crime for people hide their faces from CCTV, to preserve their privacy.
- Write to your MPs and MEPs opposing this legislation
- Tell your friends what's going on. Raise awareness. Get a debate going.
Best regards,
Nathan Allonby
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
New EU mass surveillance project revealed
by Marc Glendening [of the respected Democracy Movement - Mark has spoken at several meetings organised by Hilary Biles and myself in West Oxfordshire]
Statewatch, the civil liberties body that monitors the EU, has gained access to Council of Ministers Conclusions that reveal that Brussels now wants law enforcement agencies in its member countries to build lists of political activists as part of a 'systematic data collection'.
Those responsible in the member countries for acquiring the information on 'agents of radicalisation' have been sent by the EU a 'data compilation instrument' that includes a list of 70 questions they are requested to answer.
This involves discovering who the targeted activists socialise with, family members, psychological traits, religious affiliation, activities, economic status, and, very revealingly, 'oral comments' - presumably ascertained through phone taps - they have made on political issues (Guardian, June 8, 2010).
Vague definition
What actually constitutes being considered to be an 'agent of radicalisation' is not defined in any degree of detail and leaves open the door to wide categories of people finding themselves of potential interest to EU agencies.
The EU documents refer to 'extreme right/left, Islamist, nationalist, anti-globalisation' groups as some of those qualifying for surveillance, but the Democracy Movement will now use Freedom of Information requests within the UK to try and discover what precise criteria those in the UK entrusted with building this database will employ.
Europol, the EU's fledgling FBI equivalent, will pull together the information gathered at the member state level.
Broader authoritarian agenda
This move by the EU to document and keep under surveillance political activists follows on from the establishment of Project Indect.
This European Commission funded and inititated programme is designed to develop a system of automated surveillance monitors that will identify 'abnormal behaviour'.
In addition to CCTV footage, these sensors will comb through web sites, internet discussion forums, file servers and individual computers.
In Britain, York University and the Police Service of Northern Ireland are spearheading the development of this project with £10million of Brussels funding.
Again, there is a failure, or refusal, to actually spell out what constitutes 'abnormal behaviour' and this means that what in a traditional liberal democracy might be considered to be legitimate activity that should be free of state surveillance will, in the context of the EU, be considered appropriate for state intervention.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, has described Project Indect as 'positively chilling'.
EU critics to be targets?
It is perhaps worth recalling in this context that, famously, the Vienna-based EU Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia (since morphed into the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights) once defined opposition to the European single currency as "monetary xenophobia"!
So it is therefore far from utterly inconceivable that those groups and persons who are opposed to European political union could find themselves defined by EU agencies as being nationalist 'agents of radicalism' and participants in 'abnormal behaviour', worthy of having their phones and computers tapped, among other activities.
No democracy
In addition to the dangerously illiberal content of this new EU drive to document and keep tabs on political activists, what is disturbing is the fact that this policy is being executed without any parliamentary or public consultation whatsoever.
Had the commendable Statewatch not somehow managed to see and expose the relevant documents, nobody in this or any other member country would even be aware this was even taking place.
Welcome to the EU's new, exciting, post-Lisbon, post-democracy.
Statewatch, the civil liberties body that monitors the EU, has gained access to Council of Ministers Conclusions that reveal that Brussels now wants law enforcement agencies in its member countries to build lists of political activists as part of a 'systematic data collection'.
Those responsible in the member countries for acquiring the information on 'agents of radicalisation' have been sent by the EU a 'data compilation instrument' that includes a list of 70 questions they are requested to answer.
This involves discovering who the targeted activists socialise with, family members, psychological traits, religious affiliation, activities, economic status, and, very revealingly, 'oral comments' - presumably ascertained through phone taps - they have made on political issues (Guardian, June 8, 2010).
Vague definition
What actually constitutes being considered to be an 'agent of radicalisation' is not defined in any degree of detail and leaves open the door to wide categories of people finding themselves of potential interest to EU agencies.
The EU documents refer to 'extreme right/left, Islamist, nationalist, anti-globalisation' groups as some of those qualifying for surveillance, but the Democracy Movement will now use Freedom of Information requests within the UK to try and discover what precise criteria those in the UK entrusted with building this database will employ.
Europol, the EU's fledgling FBI equivalent, will pull together the information gathered at the member state level.
Broader authoritarian agenda
This move by the EU to document and keep under surveillance political activists follows on from the establishment of Project Indect.
This European Commission funded and inititated programme is designed to develop a system of automated surveillance monitors that will identify 'abnormal behaviour'.
In addition to CCTV footage, these sensors will comb through web sites, internet discussion forums, file servers and individual computers.
In Britain, York University and the Police Service of Northern Ireland are spearheading the development of this project with £10million of Brussels funding.
Again, there is a failure, or refusal, to actually spell out what constitutes 'abnormal behaviour' and this means that what in a traditional liberal democracy might be considered to be legitimate activity that should be free of state surveillance will, in the context of the EU, be considered appropriate for state intervention.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, has described Project Indect as 'positively chilling'.
EU critics to be targets?
It is perhaps worth recalling in this context that, famously, the Vienna-based EU Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia (since morphed into the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights) once defined opposition to the European single currency as "monetary xenophobia"!
So it is therefore far from utterly inconceivable that those groups and persons who are opposed to European political union could find themselves defined by EU agencies as being nationalist 'agents of radicalism' and participants in 'abnormal behaviour', worthy of having their phones and computers tapped, among other activities.
No democracy
In addition to the dangerously illiberal content of this new EU drive to document and keep tabs on political activists, what is disturbing is the fact that this policy is being executed without any parliamentary or public consultation whatsoever.
Had the commendable Statewatch not somehow managed to see and expose the relevant documents, nobody in this or any other member country would even be aware this was even taking place.
Welcome to the EU's new, exciting, post-Lisbon, post-democracy.
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