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.