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.