2019: FACIAL RECOGNITION AND CORPORATE SURVEILLANCE BECOME COMMONPLACE

Source

http://www.blacklistednews.com

Published: January 2, 2020

SOURCE: MASS PRIVATE I

2019 will go down as the year facial recognition and corporate surveillance became commonplace.

I wrote approximately thirty-three different facial recognition stories last year and the majority of them dealt with facial recognition surveillance of the public.

From Walgreen’s, Nestle, and Coors using Iris-tracking cameras to Home Depot and Lowe’s using facial recognition cameras to secretly identify millions of customers, the number of ways corporations monitor the public is staggering.

And corporations are not shy about how they use this technology to identify everyone.

Recently, I wrote about the NEC Corporation opening a facial recognition “customer experience” center in Washington, DC and how they planned to use it to convince politicians that facial recognition of the public is a good thing.

NEC is so confident that politicians will accept facial recognition, they used Iris recognition cameras to identify everyone at a film and music conference in Texas.

NEC’s “Fahamu Mama-Mtoto (To know mother and child)” motto is really a plan to identify every mother and child in the world using facial recognition.

A few months ago, I wrote about how corporations used “Money USA20/20” to expand facial recognition worldwide. Corporations like Proxyclick have even gone so far as to suggest that the public will be impressed by corporate facial recognition.

From nightclubs to bars, businesses are secretly using facial recognition to identity patrons. From facial recognition elevators to facial recognition police robocops our privacy is in danger like never before.

Amazon Experience Centers and Ring doorbell surveillance networks are changing the way we view corporate/police partnerships.

In many states, police are trying to convince the public to conduct internet sales and swaps in police stations or police parking lots. In Washington, Jackson’s Convenient Stores use a cop-run facial recognition company to identify every customer.

Sports stadiums like Gillette Stadium and music festivals have corporate owners using facial recognition while Major League Baseball uses CLEAR facial recognition to identify millions of fans.

In Idaho, the Boise City Hall uses facial recognition to identify and blacklist anyone that enters. It won’t be long before police start using facial recognition glasses to identify anyone they come in contact with. From Detroit to San Diego, police use smart streetlights to identify and track people in real-time. Police dispatchers across the country are using CCTV cameras to surveil 30 million Americans in real-time, and in Baltimore, police use surveillance planes to monitor the public in real-time. (To find out more about Baltimore’s surveillance planes click here.)

Police often use Lexis Nexis’s facial recognition or Amazon’s Rekogntion to get around privacy laws to identify a suspect, their friends and family members.

Police facial recognition is a lot worse that what you have been told: at least half of all Americans are in a police facial recognition database.

American and Chinese cities lead the world in spying on their citizens. According to Comparitech, thirteen U.S. cities lead the world in spying on their citizens.

#10- Atlanta, GA
#12- Chicago, IL
#27- Washington, DC
#37- San Francisco, CA
#41- San Diego, CA
#45- Boston, MA
#57- New York City, NY
#65- Miami, FL
#68- Detroit, MI
#78- Houston, TX
#83- Philadelphia, PA
#96- Dallas, TX
#119- Los Angeles, CA

Much has been written about government surveillance but until this year, the media has largely ignored corporate facial recognition and their ties to law enforcement. I am hopeful that will change in 2020, as Americans see the dangers of being identified and tracked everywhere they go.

Artificial Intelligence Is Watching Our Every Move and Judging Us

Source

http://www.zerohedge.com

Mon, 12/02/2019

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Technology has advanced to the point that many Americans have artificial intelligence devices in their homes. But what the majority of the sleeping masses don’t realize, is that AI is watching us and judging us.

This should concern everyone because it isn’t just tyrannies like China that are employing AI as a way to control and further enslave the population.  The United States government is doing it also – and for the same reasons – complete domination over everyone.

Artificial intelligence has tremendous power to enhance spying, and both authoritarian governments and democracies are adopting the technology as a tool of political and social control.

The potential of AI surveillance is the subject of the third installment of the Sleepwalkers podcast. The episode examines how AI consolidates power and control and asks if we can limit this troubling trend.

Data collected from apps and websites already help optimize ads and social feeds. The same data can also reveal someone’s personal life and political leanings to the authorities. The trend is advancing thanks to smartphones, smart cameras, and more advanced AI. -Wired

In fact, a 2017 algorithm developed at Stanford claimed to be able to tell if a person was gay. Even if it’s inaccurate, it will eventually be used by governments as a tool of persecution. Imagine being told AI could tell you political affiliation and whether or not you approve of the current or future regime. The outcome would be complete authoritarianism and enslavement regardless of which government chooses to use it.  And we are NOT safe from it here in the U.S. Sadly, most Americans are embracing AI with open arms.

“Take this type of technology, feed it to a citywide CCTV surveillance system, and go to a place like Saudi Arabia where being gay is considered a crime,” says Lisa Talia Moretti, a digital sociologist.

“Suddenly you’re pulling people off the street and arresting them because you’re gay because the computer said so.”

China has also embraced facial recognition and AI surveillance. The AI industry there has flourished thanks to fierce competition and unrivaled access to personal data. The rise of AI is enabling tighter government control of information, speech, and freedoms. The U.S. isn’t far behind. In some Chinese cities, facial recognition is used to catch criminals in surveillance footage, and to publicly shame those who commit minor offenses. Most troubling, AI is being used in Xinjiang, a province in Western China, to persecute Muslims. China is now exporting the technology, along with the principles of techno-repression, to countries including Pakistan, Cambodia, and Laos, through its Belt and Road Initiative.

Even if China’s AI capabilities are exaggerated, the AI boom there is having a chilling effect on personal freedom, says Ian Bremmer, an expert on global political risk and founder of the Eurasia Group. “You just need a government that is starting to get that capacity and make it known, and have a few people that are sort of strung up as examples, and suddenly everyone is scared,” he says. -Wired

Law enforcement in the U.S. is embracing AI. The podcast concludes with the New York Police Department testing technologies including facial recognition. Although AI promises to make the department more effective and even more accountable, whether we accept this troubling trend may determine whether the West sleepwalks towards its own form of technological tyranny, reported Wired. “In America, the liberty we take for granted is hard-won and fragile,” says Oz Woloshyn, the host of Sleepwalkers. “So much hangs in the balance, and the decisions we take will affect our lives profoundly, and echo through the lives of our children.”

CHINESE CITIZENS WILL HAVE TO GET THEIR FACES SCANNED TO ACCESS THE INTERNET

Source

Waking Times

John Vibes, Truth Theory

October 10, 2019

Internet access is already notoriously restricted in China, but things are about to get a whole lot worse. Chinese citizens are currently forced to show their ID Card in order to get the internet installed in their house, but that identification database will soon be tightened with facial recognition technology.

Starting on December 1st, Citizens of China will be required to scan their faces before gaining access to the internet or buying a smartphone.

Chinese must pass facial-recognition just to use internet or get smartphone #China pic.twitter.com/TJwyXpHA8D

— TomoNews US (@TomoNewsUS) October 4, 2019

The new regulation is a part of China’s controversial social credit system, which records the actions of every citizen and scores those actions according to their compliance with Chinese laws and customs.

If a person’s credit score drops too low, they can be banned from flying or using public transit systems, have their internet access restricted, or have their children blocked from going to the best schools. Low social credit scores can also result in being fired from a job, banned from hotels, and even having pets taken away. On the other hand, high social credit scores will result in better interest rates at banks, lower energy costs and even prioritized listing on dating sites.

According to a report from the Associated Press, millions of people have already been blocked from buying airplane and train tickets due to their social credit score. In some cases, people could have their name, photo, and violations listed in LED billboards in busy city areas.

The issue with these experimental R&D AI/FRT projects is that they use real production systems and data. Realtime security footage from governmental buildings and actual police data sets used in open systems grating access to active third party mass surveillance systems in China. pic.twitter.com/ohLc7pbkuc

— Victor Gevers (@0xDUDE) October 5, 2019

According to the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, requiring citizens to submit to facial recognition in order to access the internet is intended to improve the country’s internet security and help to fight against “terrorism.” However, it is important to note that the Chinese government has labeled peaceful protesters in Hong Kong as “terrorists,” so it is likely that this measure will be used to stifle dissent as well.

The recent protests in Hong Kong may have even provoked the Chinese government to implement these measures as soon as possible, to keep news of the protests away from citizens of mainland China, especially those who may not be entirely loyal to the regime in the first place. Restricting internet access in this fashion was surely a part of the social credit system plan all along, but the timing is suspect, considering the situation that the Chinese government is dealing with in Hong Kong

While China may be the testing ground for a social credit system, governments all over the world have been considering similar measures, including Australia and Canada.

About the Author

John Vibes is an author and journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture, and focuses solutions-oriented approaches to social problems. He is also a host of The Free Your Mind Conference and The Free Thought Project Podcast.

Microsoft chief Brad Smith says rise of killer robots is ‘unstoppable’

Source

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Robin Pagnamenta

21 SEPTEMBER 2019

The technology which enables robots to kill is likely to spread to many countries in time CREDIT: WARNER BR

The rise of killer robots is now unstoppable and a new digital Geneva Convention is essential to protect the world from the growing threat they pose, according to the President of the world’s biggest technology company.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, said the use of ‘lethal autonomous weapon systems’ poses a host of new ethical questions which need to be considered by governments as a matter of urgency.

He said the rapidly advancing technology, in which flying, swimming or walking drones can be equipped with lethal weapons systems – missiles, bombs or guns – which could be programmed to operate entirely or partially autonomously, “ultimately will spread… to many countries”.

The US, China, Israel, South Korea, Russia and the UK are all developing weapon systems with a significant degree of autonomy in the critical functions of selecting and attacking targets.

The technology is a growing focus for many militaries because replacing troops with machines can make the decision to go to war easier.

But it remains unclear who is responsible for deaths or injuries caused by a machine – the developer, manufacturer, commander or the device itself.

Smith said killer robots must “not be allowed to decide on their own to engage in combat and who to kill” and argued that a new international convention needed to be drawn up to govern the use of the technology.

“The safety of civilians is at risk today. We need more urgent action, and we need it in the form of a digital Geneva Convention, rules that will protect civilians and soldiers.”

Speaking at the launch of his new book, Tools and Weapons, at the Microsoft store in London’s Oxford Circus, Smith said there was also a need for stricter international rules over the use of facial recognition technology and other emerging forms of artificial intelligence.

“There needs to be there needs to be a new law in this space, we need regulation in the world of facial recognition in order to protect against potential abuse.”

Continue:

Source

The World According to Artificial Intelligence (Doc)

Al Jazeera English

Published on 13 Jun 2019

Artificial intelligence might be a technological revolution unlike any other, transforming our homes, our work, our lives; but for many – the poor, minority groups, the people deemed to be expendable – their picture remains the same. “The way these technologies are being developed is not empowering people, it’s empowering corporations,” says Zeynep Tufekci, from the University of North Carolina.. “They are in the hands of the people who hold the data. And that data is being fed into algorithms that we don’t really get to see or understand that are opaque even to the people who wrote the programme. And they’re being used against us, rather than for us.” In episode two of The Big Picture: The World According to AI we examine practices such as predictive policing, predictive sentencing, as well as the power structures and in-built prejudices that could lead to even more harm than the good its champions would suggest.

In the United States, we travel to one of the country’s poorest neighbourhoods, Skid Row in Los Angeles, to see first-hand how the Los Angeles Police Department is using algorithmic software to police a majority black community. And in China, we examine the implications of a social credit scoring system that deploys machine learning technologies – new innovations in surveillance and social control that are claimed to be used against ethnic Uighur communities.

As AI is used to make more and more decisions for and about us, from targeting, to policing, to social welfare, it raises huge questions. What will AI be used for in the future? And who will stand to benefit?

 

WARNING: WIDESPREAD FACIAL SURVEILLANCE IS AN “IMMINENT REALITY”

WARNING: Widespread Facial Surveillance is an “Imminent Reality”

SHTFplan.com

Mac Slavo
May 21st, 2019

The dystopian future George Orwell warned us all about in his iconic novel, 1984 has quickly become our reality. Widespread facial surveillance in the “land of the free” is an “imminent reality.”

A tech privacy report, that has been swept under the rug by the mainstream media has declared that Americans are about to live through the very world Orwell wrote of. Georgetown researchers are warning Americans about a sophisticated real-time face surveillance system that’s about to become an “imminent reality” for millions of citizens across the country. Ground zero, though, appears to be Detroit.

The “America Under Watch” report is a warning that authorities in select U.S. cities may soon be able to pick you out from a crowd, identify you, and trace your movements via a secret network of cameras constantly capturing images of your face.  Mass surveillance of every single human being living in the U.S. has become a nightmarish dystopian reality.

DataWorks says it offers software which “provides continuous screening and monitoring of live video streams.” The system is also designed to operate on “not less than 100 concurrent video feeds.”

According to the research team’s report, live footage is captured by cameras installed around Detroit as part of Project Green Light, a public-private initiative to deter crime (and violate the privacy rights of everyone) which launched in 2016. The expanse of the police department’s facial recognition policy last summer, however, means the face recognition technology can now be connected to any live video, including security cameras, drone footage, and body-worn cams.

You’ve been warned.  This technology will not remain limited to Detroit. Illinois, meanwhile, is home to one of the most advanced biometric surveillance systems in the country. The report added that the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and the Chicago Transit Authority have had face surveillance capabilities since “at least 2016.”

Similar facial surveillance is now also, apparently on the horizon for other large cities, including New York City, Orlando, and Washington D.C. Oddly enough, San Francisco,  known for its authoritarian control of the public, became the first US city to ban facial recognition software used by police and other municipal agencies last week.

This report has prompted the authors, Clare Garvie, and Laura M. Moy, to call for a “complete moratorium on police use of face recognition” to give communities a chance to decide whether they always want to be monitored in their streets and neighborhoods.

The American mainstream media is also doing their “due diligence” by hiding this report and it’s obvious why they have done so.  The U.S. could very soon resemble communist China with the citizens having no rights and limited ability to even ask the government for permission, while the government does whatever they want with the power willingly handed to them by the ignorant masses.

Read the entire report titled “American Under Watch” here. 

You’ve been warned: Widespread US face surveillance is ‘imminent reality’, says tech privacy report

Source

http://www.rt.com

18 May, 2019

© Reuters / Regis Duvignau

Georgetown researchers are warning Americans about a sophisticated real-time face surveillance system that’s about to become an “imminent reality” for millions of citizens across the country.

The ‘America Under Watch’ report is a warning that authorities in select US cities may soon be able to pick you out from a crowd, identify you, and trace your movements via a secret network of cameras constantly capturing images of your face.

ALSO ON RT.COMFarcical recognition tech? NYPD ‘used Woody Harrelson pic for beer thief search’

The report claims both Detroit and Chicago purchased software from a South Carolina company, DataWorks Plus, that gives police the ability to scan live video from cameras located at businesses, health clinics, schools, and apartment buildings. Both cities say they are not currently using the technology.

Educate to Liberate LLC@NefertariNkenge

Replying to @MCmuckraker

Facial recognition software has proven problematic for violating ppl’s civil liberties and discriminating against Black people and (to a lesser extent), other POC. Seems like a waste of an investment given the composition of the city of #Detroit.

6:29 PM – May 14, 2019

sarah jeong

✔@sarahjeong

Replying to @sarahjeong

I think it’s helpful to treat privacy like a form of environmental health. Violations of privacy are sometimes individual, and always collective.

11:00 AM – May 17, 2019

DataWorks says it provides software which “provides continuous screening and monitoring of live video streams.” The system is also designed to operate on “not less than 100 concurrent video feeds.”

According to the research team’s report, live footage is captured by cameras installed around Detroit as part of Project Green Light, a public-private initiative to deter crime which launched in 2016. The expanse of the police department’s facial recognition policy last summer, however, means the face recognition technology can now be connected to any live video, including security cameras, drone footage, and body-worn cams.

View image on Twitter

Green Light Detroit@D_GreenLight

RT @copystar: “Detroit’s real-time face surveillance is designed to operate together with a program called Project Green Light Detroit, an initiative launched in January 2016 that has dramatically expanded the city’s network of surveillance cameras” …

6:37 AM – May 16, 2019

Illinois, meanwhile, is host to one of the most advanced biometric surveillance systems in the country, the report claims, adding that the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and the Chicago Transit Authority have had face surveillance capabilities since “at least 2016.”

Similar face surveillance is also apparently on the horizon for NYC, Orlando, and DC.

ALSO ON RT.COMChina creates facial recognition app to tell pandas apart

The report authors, Clare Garvie and Laura M. Moy, are now calling for a “complete moratorium on police use of face recognition” to give communities a chance to decide whether they want to be monitored in their streets and neighborhoods.

Last week, San Francisco became the first US city to ban facial recognition software used by police and other municipal agencies.

London police arrest man who covered face during public facial recognition trials (video)

Source

ROB BESCHIZZA

May 15, 2019

Police in London conducted a public street trial with facial recognition cameras. A man who covered his face as he walked by the cameras was stopped by officers, forced to submit to being photographed, and then arrested on a charge of public disorder after complaining loudly. The segment starts at 3:35 in the embedded BBC video; here’s more coverage from The Independent:

The Independent revealed that more than £200,000 was spent on six deployments that resulted in no arrests between August 2016 and July last year. Two people wanted for violent offences were arrested after a trial in December.

Critics have called the force’s use of facial recognition a “shambles” and accused Scotland Yard of wasting public money … The Metropolitan Police has described the deployments as “overt” and said members of the public were informed facial recognition was being used by posters and leaflets. But no one questioned by The Independent after they passed through a scanning zone in central London in December had seen police publicity material, and campaigners claim the technology is being rolled out “by stealth”.

I can barely believe the motto of the Metropolitan Police is ‘TOTAL POLICING’. Horseshoe theory is a limiting view of politics, but it is amazing how we get to the terminology of comic-book villainy by other means.

The jobsworth “for your own protection” attitude of British cops is incredibly annoying, albeit less annoying than getting executed in the street by American ones. The real danger, though, lurks in how the cops dance their way between that nonsense and, as one plain-clothes officer puts it, “covering your face is grounds for reasonable suspicion.” When authorities pick and choose rationalizations depending on the audience, the true answer is a secret.

Facebook Wants A Facial Recognition Smart Home Device For Its Users

Source link

http://www.activistpost.com

By Aaron Kesel

September 22, 2018

Image credit

Facebook is planning to announce a new home assistant device called “Portal” with a controversial facial recognition camera, Cheddar reported.

This is significant because not even Amazon’s Echo or Google’s own Smart Home device has a facial recognition camera built in.

Recently embroiled in scandals the past few months, Facebook has been facing blowback from allowing its users’ data to be shared with political consultation firm Cambridge Analytica and other firms like it.

Shockingly, Facebook further admitted other privacy violations when they said in April that it scans its users’ photos and links posted on the social media giant and will review text you send if something is flagged.

Despite this, Facebook plans on introducing a video chat on Portal that will use facial recognition to tag users and follow them around the room.

Although, according to the report, the device will have a privacy shutter to disable the camera’s tracking; but the facial recognition camera may just be the biggest mistake for the company.

Recent polls in the United States have shown that Americans don’t trust Facebook to protect their personal information, so why would they trust them with a facial recognition camera?

Portal is expected to come in two variants: small and large screen sizes for $300 and $400 respectively, according to the report.

This comes as more and more facial recognition cameras are being pushed into society, with Amazon helping law enforcement with its Facial Rekogntion software, DHS wanting to use it for border control, and the Olympics wanting to use the tech for security.

An incredibly worrying trend is taking place.

Even retail is pushing for the technology as an anti-theft mechanism to be introduced in a number of stores using biometric facial recognition software FaceFirst to build a database of shoplifters, as Activist Post reported.

We are entering the Minority Report; there is no going back after this technology is public and citizens are indoctrinated that it’s “for their safety.”

At that point, we are officially trading liberty and privacy for security. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

However, there are key problems with the technology mismatching faces. As an example recently, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California tested Amazon’s facial Rekognition software and the program erroneously and hilariously identified 28 members of Congress as people who have been arrested for crimes. But that’s far from the only instance where the technology has failed to correctly identify a person.

Facebook’s Portal will further the agenda by pushing this flawed technology into the public for wide-scale acceptance. One has to wonder if Facebook would then work with law enforcement to identify individuals. It’s a known fact that Facebook has handed data to governments worldwide.

It’s a scary prospect allowing a company that originally had money flowing in from the CIA’s venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, to put facial recognition and a direct audio/video device in one’s home.

Even if they don’t help law enforcement or intelligence agencies they will abuse the technology. This reminds me of the time former CIA Director David Petraeus said: “we will spy on you through your dishwasher.”

Former U.S. director of national intelligence James Clapper reiterated that statement in 2016 when he said:

In the future, intelligence services might use the [internet of things] for identification, surveillance, monitoring, location tracking, and targeting for recruitment, or to gain access to networks or user credentials.

While this isn’t a dishwasher, it’s an IoT (Internet Of Things) device. The prospect is the same: abusing a voice-activated device to record audio and spy. Having access to a voice device or camera is one thing, but being able to have facial recognition is a different story.

Maybe, it’s time for an alternative social network like Minds.com or Somee.Social.

Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post. Support us at Patreon. Follow us on Minds, Steemit, SoMee, BitChute, Facebook and Twitter. Ready for solutions? Subscribe to our premium newsletter Counter Markets.

 

Scary Artificial Intelligence Breakthrough – What You’re About to See will Shock You (10 min)

AnyVision’s facial recognition cameras are being installed in ‘smart cites’ everywhere

http://www.blacklistednews.com

Published: February 21, 2018

Source: mass private I 

 

 

Everywhere you turn politicians and corporations are trying to convince the public we need to convert our cities into ‘smart cities’.

Last week AnyVision and Nvidia announced that they are working together to put facial recognition cameras in cities across the globe.

“Nvidia has partnered with AI developer AnyVision to create facial recognition technology for ‘smart cities’ around the world. The two companies will work to install automatic facial recognition into CCTV (closed-circuit television) surveillance cameras”. 

AnyVision is an Israel-based company that profits from spying on everyone.

Five months ago, I warned everyone that Nvidia also wants to turn police vehicles into 360 degree facial recognition platforms.

Facial recognition cameras are being used to spy on everyone. 

Facial recognition cameras identify marathon runners in real-time

AnyVision claims their facial recognition technology can detect, track and recognize any person of interest with more than 99% accuracy. Their video also claims they can identify marathon runners in real-time.

Soon nowhere will be safe from law enforcement’s prying eyes.

“AnyVision utilizes Nvidia hardware to achieve high-speed, real-time face recognition from surveillance video streams. Our system is highly optimized for GPU acceleration allowing us to deliver real-time analysis of streaming data whilst achieving unprecedented accuracy.”

Mashable asks “is this technology terrifying, and possibly everything Orwell warned us about?  Absolutely”.

Nearly a year ago, I warned everyone that ‘smart cities’ are being run by the CIA, DHS and the NDOT.

But it gets worse; law enforcement is using private companies to do an end-run around our Bill of Rights.

Companies like Phillips Lighting, Siemens, Intellistreets, ShotPoint and ShotSpotter are all working together to install facial recognition cameras and microphones in every city in America.

Don’t be fooled, ‘smart cities’ are really just a euphemism for total control.

These Spy Sunglasses Help Cops Pick a Face From a Crowd of Thousands

They’re only in use in China…for now.

 AlterNet

By Kali Holloway

February 21, 2018

 

An Orwellian new tech gadget is helping China expand its already massive surveillance state, and it may only be a matter of time until other countries take an interest in the device. Police in central China are the early adopters of sunglasses outfitted with face-recognition technology that can pick a suspect out of a crowd. The Wall Street Journal reports that Beijing manufacturer LLVision Technology Corp. has said in early tests, “the device has been able to identify individuals in a database of 10,000 suspects in as little as 100 milliseconds.”

That means in the very near future, it may be nearly impossible to get lost in a crowd.

Here’s how it works: Wearers of the smart sunglasses scan a large group of people while the glasses collect biometric information from the faces in the group. Cameras mounted on the glasses run captured images through an offline database of faces to determine a perfect match. For years, Chinese officials have been collecting biometric information including eye scans, blood types and even “voice pattern” samples from citizens in various provinces. Human Rights Watch reported last year that China’s law enforcement databases “have more than one billion faces and 40 million people’s DNA samples.” With such a vast collection of data, results from pilot runs of the glasses have already yielded results. 

Transit cops in Zhengzhou, home to one of China’s biggest and busiest train stations, have worn the glasses while they monitor the millions of commuters traveling for Lunar New Year, the largest annual migration on Earth. A state-run newspaper claims the glasses have helped cops bust “seven people wanted in connection with major criminal cases, and 26 others who were traveling using other people’s identities.”

There are already more than 170 million surveillance cameras across China, and the government has announced 400 more will be installed in the next three years. But while CCTV cameras are highly effective tools for ferreting out suspects (and spying on citizens), they don’t offer the speediness of the new camera devices. “In many cases, by the time authorities rush to where a suspect has been identified, their target has melted back into the crowd,” WSJ notes. That problem is erased by these all-seeing, artificial intelligence sunglasses, which allow wearers to keep subjects locked in their sights.

“By making wearable glasses, with AI on the front end, you get instant and accurate feedback,” Wu Fei, CEO of LLVision, told WSJ. “You can decide right away what the next interaction is going to be.”

Without crossing the line from healthy concern to paranoia, it’s worth wondering if this new surveillance advancement could end up being used to keep a watchful eye on American citizens. There are already more than 35 million surveillance cameras across the U.S., and the use of facial recognition technology has been steadily expanding. In 2016, a study by the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology found that roughly half of Americans have their pictures in law enforcement facial recognition networks. According to an ACLU report, “the Baltimore Police Department used [facial recognition] to locate, identify and arrest certain people protesting Freddie Gray’s death in police custody” and “the Los Angeles Police Department deployed to undisclosed locations 16 wireless video cameras that can conduct real-time face recognition.” Another ACLU cautionary report on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Traveler Verification Service warns of the program’s mission to use facial recognition technology on every passenger boarding a flight bound for outside of America’s borders. Raising the concern of mission creep, the ACLU points out that facial recognition technology has “higher error rates” when assessing the faces of African Americans and women and children of all races.

A less advanced version of the glasses, lacking facial recognition technology, has reportedly been shipped to parts of Africa, Europe, Japan and the U.S. But WSJ indicates that LLVision, like every money-making entity, wants to increase sales of its newest spy gadget far beyond the borders of its home country. That could very well lead to bulk sales of its new glasses to law enforcement entities in other countries.

“There might be an opportunity there,” Wu suggested to the outlet. “Who knows?”

Kali Holloway is a senior writer and the associate editor of media and culture at AlterNet.

Augmented reality software has real privacy implications: New app scans faces in pictures and automatically connects to their social media accounts

http://www.newstarget.com

by Zoey Sky

January 15, 2018

 

Do we really need an app that makes it easier for complete strangers to identify us and access our social media profiles?

Blippar, a firm based in London, has recently released an augmented reality (AR) app that instantly “scans faces and brings up a profile with information about the person including links to their social media profiles.”

The AR app, called Augmented Reality Face Profile, recognizes more than 400,000 public figures. Blippar claims that the app has a “more than 99 percent accuracy rate.” The technology is advanced enough to distinguish celebrities such as the Olsen twins (actresses), the Brownlee Brothers (British Olympic runners), and Jedward (Irish pop duo).

Augmented Reality Face Profile mostly identifies public figures such as “actors, politicians, musicians, singers, entrepreneurs, authors, sports stars, and scientists. Blippar adds that the profiles are a “strictly opt-in experience.”

The app merges “rapid computer vision and artificial intelligence” to recognize faces. The system might even be used for security checks for building access and even online banking.

Danny Lopez, the company’s chief operating officer, says that the facial recognition feature of smartphones helps satisfy natural human curiosity. He added, “The technology’s accuracy in distinguishing even identical twins is the solution of a complex challenge for the industry, and the wider applications are diverse and game-changing, from building access to smart networking, security, and fraud prevention.” (Related: Shady Secret app that let people post anonymous social media bullying messages now shut down; so why is Wikipedia still online?)

The Blippar app is available for both iOS and Android.

How does Augmented Reality Face Profile work?

The Augmented Reality Face Profile lets users scan faces to reveal more information about them. App users can “add connections to things that already exist in Blippar’s ‘knowledge graph,’” such as “objects, concepts, and entities.” When scanning the faces of public figures, their faces are “discoverable” using data from the knowledge graph, which collates information from “publicly accessible sources.”

Ambarish Mitra, co-founder and CEO at Blippar, explains that Augmented Reality Face Profiles can revolutionize how “we communicate and express ourselves.” Mitra adds that although the human face is the “most expressive form of communication,” the app digitizes the whole process.

Combined with facial recognition technology and the knowledge graph, Blippar shares that the app can let individuals express themselves through their various interests such as “their hobbies, opinions, key fun facts,” and other details about their life.

While the company reasons that the app is “a new, unique and fun way of showing who you are and of learning more about others,” it’s not hard to imagine that there might be people who will take advantage of this technology and use it to harass and bully unsuspecting individuals.

Tips for helping children deal with cyberbullying

While we can’t protect children from all the dangers that they might face online, the tips below can help you teach them how to deal with cyberbullying:

• Let them know it’s okay to ask for help — If you notice that they’re acting out of sorts (e.g. not sleeping well, refusing to go to school, etc.), let them know that they can talk to you about anything.
• Make them a part of the solution — Involve your kids while you’re trying to resolve the situation. This can help them regain their dignity and sense of control.
• Respond thoughtfully — Parents who don’t think things through can make matters worse for victims of cyberbullying. Always consider any move you make because it can affect your child.
• Listen to both sides of the story — While your instinct might be to believe your child’s side version of the story, try to listen to other accounts as well to get the whole picture.
• Listen to them — It can be hard to discuss situations like this, and sometimes simply having someone to talk to can be a great help to victims of cyberbullying.

You can read more articles about how to use technology wisely at FutureScienceNews.com.

Sources include:

DailyMail.com

ConnectSafely.org

Next-Level Surveillance: China Embraces Facial Recognition (5 min)

Coming soon to the rest of the world.

Wall Street Journal

27 Jun 2017

Once the stuff of science fiction, facial-scanning cameras are becoming a part of daily life in China, where they’re used for marketing, surveillance and social control.

Video: Paolo Bosonin. Photo: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

Latest facial recognition software can identify you even if your face is COVERED, exchanging even more privacy for “safety”

Source: Latest facial recognition software can identify you even if your face is COVERED, exchanging even more privacy for “safety”

govtslaves.com

by JD Heyes

 September 14, 2017

 

Soon it will be impossible to cover up your face and hide your identity as you engage in a criminal activity, thanks to up-and-coming facial recognition technology.

The bad news is, you won’t be able to hide in plain view either, just to protect your privacy.

As reported by the UK’s Daily Mail, the technology under development has already progressed far enough to virtually “unmask” people in most situations. The Disguised Face Identification (DFI) system employs an AI network as it maps facial features hidden behind scarves, head gear, and even fake beards and mustaches to identify people.

No doubt the system can be integrated with criminal databases so that flagging of wanted people can be done instantaneously; in fact, such systems already exist for automobiles. As Natural News has reported as far back as 2013, police departments have been using license plate readers that allow cops to instantly identify people wanted for various crimes as they drive by their vehicles.

Police aren’t concerned about privacy and the incredible amount of hackable data being collected by the readers. Rather, they’re more concerned with revenues: As the Boston Globe reported in May 2013, one $24,000 plate reader paid for itself in just 11 days. “We located more uninsured vehicles in our first month . . . using [the camera] in one cruiser than the entire department did the whole year before,” said Boston PD Sgt. Robert Griffin.

Now, authorities want to take instant database identification a big step further with new facial recognition technology, which will put a quick end to remaining anonymous in public.

“This is very interesting for law enforcement and other organizations that want to capture criminals,” said Amarjot Singh, a University of Cambridge researcher who helped develop DIF technologies, in an interview with Inverse.

Here’s how the technology works: DFI utilizes a deep-learning AI neural network the research team ‘trained’ by inputting images of test subjects using several different kinds of disguises. In addition, images fed into the network included simple and complex backgrounds that challenged the AI to identify disguised features under a variety of scenarios.

Notes the Daily Mail:

AI identifies people by measuring the distances and angle between 14 facial points — ten for the eyes, three for the lips, and one for the nose.

It uses these readings to estimate the hidden facial structure, and then compares this with learned images to unveil the person’s true identity.

Good, you say. In this age of masked Antifa terrorists, it will be good for police to have the technology to identify who is actually responsible for attacking other people, burning cars, and destroying businesses. (Related: America’s universities now becoming terrorist training hubs for Antifa.)

But what about when the technology misidentifies someone as being guilty of committing a crime or act of violence? Because that’s bound to happen; no technology is 100-percent effective or, in this case, foolproof.

Also, there is so much potential for abuse with this technology. If it is deployed widely, authorities will literally be able to track you no matter where you go.

Plus, this technology dramatically alters the relationship between American citizens and all levels of government. Our founders and subsequent generations established a system of justice that presumes innocence until one can be proven guilty; technologies like this DFI and license plate readers are changing that paradigm from “presumed guilty until authorities can prove you are innocent with a wash through government criminal databases.”

And, of course, there is the dramatic loss of privacy and the threat in the Internet age of having more of your personal information stolen from yet another database.

“…[T]his is maybe the third or fourth most worrying ML paper I’ve seen recently re: AI and emergent authoritarianism. Historical crossroads,” tweeted Dr. Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, in posting the research to Twitter.

“Yes, we can & should nitpick this and all papers but the trend is clear. Ever-increasing new capability that will serve authoritarians well,” he added.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

Twitter.com

DailyMail.co.uk

NaturalNews.com

Case study of LAPD and Palantir’s predictive policing tool: same corruption; new, empirical respectability

Allowing this technology to be used by corrupt, ignorant racist doofus coppers: what could go wrong?

Source: Case study of LAPD and Palantir’s predictive policing tool: same corruption; new, empirical respectability

http://www.blacklistednews.com

Source: Boing Boing

Sept 10, 2017

UT Austin sociologist Sarah Brayne spent 2.5 years conducting field research with the LAPD as they rolled out Predpol, a software tool that is supposed to direct police to places where crime is likely to occur, but which has been shown to send cops out to overpolice brown and poor people at the expense of actual crimefighting.

Brayne observed and interviewed more than 75 cops to get a picture of how the job of policing is changed by big data-based “predictive” tools. She found that the tools changed police from a law-enforcement agency to an intelligence agency, concerned more with surveilling people who had not committed a crime than to interdicting or solving crimes in the world.

The cops she interviewed were bullish on Palantir’s products, though they also candidly admitted that predictive tools allowed them to put an objective face on their existing, illegal racial profiling practices (“[Y]ou can’t target individuals especially for any race… [W]e didn’t want to make it look like we’re creating a gang depository of just gang affiliates or gang associates. . . . We were just trying to cover and make sure everything is right on the front end”).

Predictive policing casts a very wide net. Whereas before, the police would only assemble a file on you if you were suspected of a crime, the Palantirization of policing means that “police increasingly utilize data on individuals who have not had any police contact at all.” Tools like the Automatic License Plate Reader log the movements of everyone in a city; then, if a predictive policing algorithm fingers you as being somehow connected to a suspect, all your movements, going far back in time, are summoned up and delivered to the police (the same goes for other automated bulk-collection records, like cellphone surveillance through IMSI catchers and records requests to phone companies).

In Brayne’s words, it’s no longer the case that individuals engage in incriminating acts, now, “individuals lead incriminating lives—daily activities, now codified as data, can be marshaled as evidence ex post facto.”

What’s more, these tools are a ready made for “parallel construction…the process of building a separate evidentiary base for a criminal investigation to conceal how the investigation began, if it involved warrantless surveillance or other inadmissible evidence.” This means that any protections embedded in warrantless surveillance regimes (like the inadmissability of evidence) are easily circumvented by law enforcement.

Brayne paints a picture of law enforcement, Palantir and co working together to keep business-as-usual in place, but with a veneer of empiricism. A cop who “knows” that someone is guilty can cast ever-wider surveillance nets until he finds confirming evidence, then he can rebuild his case using sources that are admissible in court, railroading his chosen perp into prison with the appearance of mathematical objectivity, rather than the racial bias that resulted in the LAPD coming under a Department of Justice consent decree.

As Brayne says, “Characterizing predictive models as ‘just math,’ and fetishizing computation as an objective process, obscures the social side of algorithmic decision-making. Individuals’ interpretation of data occurs in preexisting institutional, legal, and social settings, and it is through that interpretive process that power dynamics come into play.”

This article examines the intersection of two structural developments: the growth of surveillance and the rise of “big data.” Drawing on observations and interviews conducted within the Los Angeles Police Department, I offer an empirical account of how the adoption of big data analytics does—and does not—transform police surveillance practices. I argue that the adoption of big data analytics facilitates amplifications of prior surveillance practices and fundamental transformations in surveillance activities. First, discretionary assessments of risk are supplemented and quantified using risk scores. Second, data are used for predictive, rather than reactive or explanatory, purposes. Third, the proliferation of automatic alert systems makes it possible to systematically surveil an unprecedentedly large number of people. Fourth, the threshold for inclusion in law enforcement databases is lower, now including individuals who have not had direct police contact. Fifth, previously separate data systems are merged, facilitating the spread of surveillance into a wide range of institutions. Based on these findings, I develop a theoretical model of big data surveillance that can be applied to institutional domains beyond the criminal justice system. Finally, I highlight the social consequences of big data surveillance for law and social inequality.

 

Big Data Surveillance: The Case of Policing [Sarah Brayne/American Sociological Review] (Sci-Hub mirror)

(via 4 Short Links)

Facial recognition tech turns people into ‘waking ID cards,’ warn privacy activists

Source: Facial recognition tech turns people into ‘waking ID cards,’ warn privacy activists — RT UK

RT UK

18 Aug, 2017

© Roland Weihrauch / AFP

 

Police force use of facial recognition technology in public spaces risks turning people into “walking ID cards,” a civil rights group has told RT.

Campaign director at Privacy International, Harmit Kambo, said the technology, which scans people’s faces against a mass database of facial profiles, risks labeling innocent people as “troublemakers.”

His comments come after the Home Office announced it will invest more in facial recognition technology for police, despite widespread criticism that it may be illegal as it infringes the right to privacy.

Transparency activists, MPs and independent regulators are concerned that police forces across England and Wales currently have 16 million facial profiles stored in their databases – the equivalent of almost 25 percent of the population – which can be used alongside the technology.

“Widespread use of facial recognition technology in public will have a profound impact on the freedom we take for granted when we go about our daily lives in public spaces.

“It turns us all into walking ID cards,” the Privacy International campaigner said.
Although CCTV surveillance has been in use for several years, the new scanning technology brings monitoring to a “whole new level,” and risks giving the police unprecedented powers, Kambo warned.

“The police will have the power to know where you are, even if they do not suspect you of any crime whatsoever.”

The Home Office said a biomimetic strategy will be published in “due course.”

Kambo also raised concerns over the lack of a public and parliamentary debate about the use of the “intrusive” technology and the extent to which police forces are able to deploy it.

The Metropolitan Police plans to use facial recognition technology at the Notting Hill Carnival next week, which attracts up to 2 million revelers every year.

However, the Privacy International campaigner questioned the implications the real-time use of such technology will have on the public.

“Will it mean that everyone who attends the Notting Hill Carnival later this month will have their face photographed and kept on a police database permanently?

“Will it mean that everyone who attends peaceful protests, marches and demos in the future will be profiled as potential troublemakers?”

The use of the monitoring system at the carnival has been branded “institutionally racist,” as it targets Britain’s largest African-Caribbean event.

“It is racial profiling. They are coming and putting everyone’s face in the system,” Stafford Scott, of the anti-racism charity the Monitoring Group, said, according to the Guardian.

“A technique they use for terrorists is going to be used against young black people enjoying themselves.

“They are still institutionally racist, that will impact on communities like mine.”

This is How You Can Dodge Facial Recognition Software

Source: This is How You Can Dodge Facial Recognition Software

This guide was originally published by Jeremiah Johnson at ReadyNutrition.com

http://www.shtfplan.com

Jeremiah Johnson
January 26th, 2017
ReadyNutrition.com

Helen of Troy, according to the Odyssey, was “the face that launched a thousand ships,” prior to the Greek invasion of Troy.  You and I, on the other hand, are the faces that launch an army of CCTV cameras ready to capture our images when we walk past them.  We just covered winter camouflage tips and techniques.  Camouflage is an important part of your prepping, in terms of being able to effectively hide yourself and your supplies from prying eyes.

One of the biggest problems that we encounter is not blending in with the terrain in a wilderness environment, however, but what we face in an urban and suburban environment.  As mentioned in previous articles, you have to camouflage in accordance with the environment you find yourself within.  It would not be intelligent to stroll down the sidewalk of Hollywood Boulevard dressed up in Realtree-patterned garb with a holstered sidearm and a hunting knife.  You would undoubtedly be “noticed,” and probably take a ride in a black and white, courtesy of the police department.

There’s an article that gives some very stark details about the 250 million security cameras in existence throughout the world.  The article entitled “Opinion: Facial recognition will soon end your anonymity,” written by Tarun Wadwha on 6/4/2016 explains this in detail and how new developments in software and the ever-growing number of cameras everywhere are reducing your chances to remain anonymous.  Chances are that your face has already been scanned and entered into a database without your knowledge. Knowing these things, there are a few measures that we can take…and these are directed toward urban and suburban dwellers to give them an edge.

What these Statists are trying to do is to create a “map” of where you are and what you’re doing, along with the times and dates of your activities.  Go and see (or rent out) the latest “Jason Bourne” movie to really get a feel for the intricacies of how these Law Enforcement agencies, the government, and other interests utilize the public domains to tie into their surveillance of you and your family.

6 Ways to Dodge Biometric Verification

Here are some things you can do, and keep in mind to help lower your signature:

1. Wear sunglasses during the daylight hours…breaking up the potential to photograph your eyes, the way they are set into your face, and any eye movements that might give away what you are doing (what you’re getting ready to do).
2. Wear a hat, especially one that covers up the ears. Baseball caps are fine, but they really focus on the ears – their shape and proximity to the side of your head – for identification purposes.  The caps also bust up the curvature of your head and also hide the hair and hair patterns.
3. Wear scarves, turtlenecks, and other clothing such as balaclavas to break up the outline of the neck.
4. Gloves: hide the hands, your marital status, and scars, fingernails, or other prominent features…even the fingerprints can be photographed.
5. Layered clothing: yes, this is great to protect from the cold, but I’ll give you another reason to wear it. The Doctrine of Contrasting Colors.  For a “real-time” view of this look no further than the movie “The Recruit” with Colin Farrell and Al Pacino.  Farrell escaped from his pursuers by shedding the outer layer of his clothing and reversing the jacket.  You can do the same.  Make the green sweatshirt disappear when the need arises with a change to a tan polypro top with a zippered neck.
6. Rule of Thumb: “When the Need Arises.”  Yes, you can pack yourself a small “kit” with darker-toned makeup/lighter-toned makeup such as skin cream, and also hats of various types different from the ones you normally use.  A wig may be a quick fix to turn your hair from brown to blonde.  There are also movie supply sites you can visit that will sell you real mustaches actually made from human hair.  Sound stupid?  It won’t if you use it and it keeps you out of a cell.  This measure is for when it’s really hitting the fan…not for “day to day” activities.

Another big problem to overcome with all of this surveillance is the fact that most people have their constantly clicking and snapping little phone-cameras to take pictures of every single thing on the planet within their “biome,” and it’s these individuals who serve as “silent witnesses” to help the surveillance state gather as much info as they can.  In addition, let’s not forget that every photo you post, twitter, place on Facebook, or download in any capacity does indeed become “scarfed up” by the government.  That $50-billion-dollar facility in Utah wasn’t built to help out Olan Mills with their photography work.

Be aware, and not just of others but of yourself.  Reduce the “footprint” you put out by learning where the cameras are where you work and on your trips back and forth to your house.  Disable the little camera-dot on the top edge of your laptop with 2 layers of aluminum HVAC duct tape pieces.  Disable the microphone within it as well.  Bottom line: you have to pull security for yourself and on yourself to reduce the chances of them cataloguing your every move.  Don’t give them what they need to build up their files.

We are entering into a phase in our country with a moment of decision to come with the U.S. elections.  Martial law is always just around the corner, waiting to be inflicted on us.  These are techniques you’ll have to incorporate into your daily routine and they’ll take some practice.  Awareness and the ability to act on what is happening around you are the keys you’ll need to be able to make it all work.  We’d like to hear any suggestions you have on the matter that may work for others.  Keep fighting that good fight, and stay away from those cameras!

Jeremiah Johnson is the Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces (Airborne). Mr. Johnson was a Special Forces Medic, EMT and ACLS-certified, with comprehensive training in wilderness survival, rescue, and patient-extraction. Mr. Johnson is an ardent advocate for preparedness, self-sufficiency, and long-term disaster sustainability for families. He and his wife survived Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Cross-trained as a Special Forces Engineer, he is an expert in supply, logistics, transport, and long-term storage of perishable materials, having incorporated many of these techniques plus some unique innovations in his own homestead.

This article first appeared at Tess Pennington’s Ready Nutrition.com.

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Tess Pennington is the author of The Prepper’s Blueprint, a comprehensive guide that uses real-life scenarios to help you prepare for any disaster. Because a crisis rarely stops with a triggering event the aftermath can spiral, having the capacity to cripple our normal ways of life. The well-rounded, multi-layered approach outlined in the Blueprint helps you make sense of a wide array of preparedness concepts through easily digestible action items and supply lists.

Tess is also the author of the highly rated Prepper’s Cookbook, which helps you to create a plan for stocking, organizing and maintaining a proper emergency food supply and includes over 300 recipes for nutritious, delicious, life-saving meals.

Visit her web site at ReadyNutrition.com for an extensive compilation of free information on preparedness, homesteading, and healthy living.