Privacy, encryption vs. Surveillance state

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“On August 30, CIA satellites and supercomputers were taken down and likely seized by [U.S. President Donald] Trump’s new Space Force, and GCHQ [British Intelligence] was removed from the NSA database to also render cabal elements in the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, France, Germany, and Israel deaf and blind,” Pentagon sources explained.

https://www.disclosurenews.it/en/good-rothschild-trump-financial-reset/
 
Uh... Don't know what to tell you singleshot... Fulford has been a prolific prophet of doom for years now - a louder and seemingly more radical claxon bell than Jim Willie. I am not in the habit of reading his stuff, but I do recall some time ago there was a thread about him...

https://www.pmbug.com/forum/f9/ben-fulford-april-17-a-800/

A lot of the stuff in the page you linked doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
 
I'm fairly certain if George Orwell were alive he'd be pointing to a lot of things & saying "see, I told you so!"
 
Related to the subject of the thread, but not necessarily the article in the OP:
John McAfee said:
The "Presidential alerts": they are capable of accessing the E911 chip in your phones - giving them full access to your location, microphone, camera and every function of your phone. This not a rant, this is from me, still one of the leading cybersecurity experts. Wake up people!

https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/1047585232831041536

The other day, cell phones all across the USA went off as part of a nationwide test of this alert system. The EFF says McAfee is wrong:
...
McAfee’s tweet gets two key things wrong about this system: There is no such thing as an E911 chip, and the system does not give “them” the information he claims. In fact, the Presidential Alert does not have any way to send data about your phone back to the mobile carrier, though your phone is sending data to mobile carriers all the time for other reasons.
Privacy Issues with Enhanced 911

This isn’t to say that there aren’t serious privacy issues with the E911 system. The E911 system was developed by the FCC in the early 2000’s after concerns that the increased use of cellular telephones would make it harder for emergency responders to locate a person in crisis. With a landline, first responders could simply go to the billing location for the phone, but a mobile caller could be miles from their home, even in another state. The E911 standard requires that a mobile device be able to send its location, with a high degree of accuracy, to emergency responders in response to a 911 call. While this is a good idea in the event of an actual crisis, law enforcement agencies have taken advantage of this technology to locate and track people in real time. EFF has argued that this was not the intended use of this system and that such use requires a warrant.

What’s more, the mobile phone system itself has a huge number of privacy issues: from mobile malware which can control your camera and read encrypted data, to Cell-Site Simulators which can pinpoint a phone’s exact location, to the “Upstream” surveillance program exposed by Edward Snowden, to privacy issues in the SS7 system that connects mobile phone networks to each other. There are myriad privacy issues with mobile devices that we should be deeply concerned about, but the Wireless Emergency Alert system is not one of them.
...

More: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/...bile-privacy-presidential-alert-isnt-one-them
 
You know I also wonder how all these drones play into the mass surveillance game, especially since they passed that laws requiring drones to be registered. Many of them are controlled by smart phones. I'd imagine they have a way to tap into those & see whatever the drone is seeing. Between private, corporate (remember all the companies offering drone delivery now or soon to come) as well as various govt. agency & military drones as well as universities that have drone programs means there are a whole lot of potential spies flying around. That's in addition to all the surveillance cams posted everywhere along with cell phone cameras, computer web cams & even cameras in smart T.V.'s. It seems to me 1984 is upon us & big brother is watching, listening & reading. Hi big bro/deep state! :wave:
 
Today the US Transportation Security Administration released a detailed TSA Biometric Roadmap for Aviation Security & the Passenger Experience, making explicit the goal of requiring mug shots (to be used for automated facial recognition and image-based surveillance and control) as a condition of all domestic or international air travel.

This makes explicit the goal that has been apparent, but only implicit, in the activities and statements of both government agencies and airline and airport trade associations.

It’s a terrifyingly totalitarian vision of pervasive surveillance of air travelers at, quite literally and deliberately, every step of their journey, enabled by automated facial recognition and by the seamless collaboration of airlines and airport operators that will help the government surveil their customers ...

More: https://papersplease.org/wp/2018/10...all-commercial-aviation-travelers/#more-12947
 
Passengers at some European airports will soon be questioned by artificial intelligence-powered lie detectors at border checkpoints, as a European Union trial of the technology is set to begin.

Fliers will be asked a series of travel-related questions by a virtual border guard avatar, and artificial intelligence will monitor their faces to assess whether they are lying.
...
The €4.5 million ($5.1 million) project, called iBorderCtrl, will be tested this month at airports in Hungary, Latvia and Greece on passengers traveling from outside the EU, with the aim of reducing congestion.

"It will ask the person to confirm their name, age and date of birth, (and) it will ask them things like what the purpose of their trip is and who is funding the trip," said Crockett.
...
The technology has been tested in its current form on only 32 people, and scientists behind the project are hoping to achieve an 85% success rate.
...

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/ai-lie-detector-eu-airports-scli-intl/index.html

If this "lie detector" thing sticks, it will be spread and it will serve a dual purpose in facial recognition surveillance (see post above). It's only a matter of time.
 
And all justified by suggesting it will identify illegal / unregistered people, so whats not to like .......
Presumably soon to be installed in all police patrol vehicles so they can have due cause to stop and search .......

The wearing of face coverings will need to be made illegal
no burka or V (for Vendetta) masks

hmmmmm
 
Delta says the Atlanta airport’s Terminal F has become the “first biometric terminal” in the United States where passengers can use facial recognition technology “from curb to gate.”

And Delta has already announced plans to offer the technology at another of its hubs: Detroit.
...
How will it work?

Delta says customers enter their passport information during online check-in. Or, at the airport, customers can scan their passport to check in. Next, passengers can click “look” as they check in at one of Delta’s automated kiosks. Travelers' face scans will be matched to passport or visa photos on file with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Delta says customers have the same option as they “approach the camera at the counter in the lobby, the TSA checkpoint or when boarding at the gate.”
...
“Nearly all 25,000 customers who travel through ATL Terminal F each week are choosing this optional process, with less than 2 percent opting out,” Delta said in a statement. “And, based on initial data, the facial recognition option is saving an average of two seconds for each customer at boarding, or nine minutes when boarding a wide body aircraft.”

Delta plans to make its Detroit hub the next of its terminals to get the “curb to gate” biometric option.
...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/trav...terminal-ready-go-atlanta-airport/2145655002/

We live in a nation of morons. Willingly submitting to the biometric mark of the beast for a paltry two seconds of convenience.
 
Update, 12/6: The bill has now passed after the Labor party agreed to drop its proposed amendments — you can read full details of the bill here.
~~~
Australia’s controversial anti-encryption bill is one step closer to becoming law, after the two leading but sparring party political giants struck a deal to pass the legislation.

The bill, in short, grants Australian police greater powers to issue “technical notices” — a nice way of forcing companies — even websites — operating in Australia to help the government hack, implant malware, undermine encryption or insert backdoors at the behest of the government.

If companies refuse, they could face financial penalties.
...
In all, the proposed provisions have been widely panned by experts, who argue that the bill is vague and contradictory, but powerful, and still contains “dangerous loopholes.” And, opponents warn (as they have for years) that any technical backdoors that allow the government to access end-to-end encrypted messages could be exploited by hackers.
...
But the rhetoric isn’t likely to dampen the rush by the global surveillance pact — the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, known as the so-called “Five Eyes” group of nations — to push for greater access to encrypted data. Only earlier this year, the governmental coalition said in no uncertain terms that it would force backdoors if companies weren’t willing to help their governments spy.

Of the Five Eyes, the U.K. was first with its 2016-ratified Investigatory Powers Act, a controversial law that critics dubbed the “snoopers’ charter.” The European Court of Human Rights later found that parts of the surveillance powers violated human rights laws — including obtaining communications data directly from providers.

Near-identical powers proposed by Australia’s draft bill, much in the U.K.’s shadows, however, aren’t covered under European law — and are likely to escape any international legal challenge.
...

https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/05/a...ngerous-anti-encryption-bill-into-parliament/
 
Mastercard (NYSE: MA) and Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) today announced a strategic collaboration to improve how people manage and use their digital identity.

Currently, verifying your identity online is still dependent on physical or digital proof managed by a central party, whether it’s your passport number, your proof of address, driver’s license, user credentials or other means. This dependence places a huge burden on individuals, who have to successfully remember hundreds of passwords for various identities and are increasingly being subjected to more complexity in proving their identity and managing their data. Working together, Mastercard and Microsoft aim to give people a secure, instant way to verify their digital identity with whomever they want, whenever they want.

The answer to these challenges is a service that would allow individuals to enter, control and share their identity data their way–on the devices they use every day. That’s Mastercard’s intention, working closely with players like Microsoft.
...

https://newsroom.mastercard.com/pre...igital-identity-innovations/#__prclt=IarCgTyK

I'm sure they would never abuse the data they collect on their customers...
 
From a month ago (I just found it):
The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have hidden an undisclosed number of covert surveillance cameras inside streetlights around the country, federal contracting documents reveal.

According to government procurement data, the DEA has paid a Houston, Texas company called Cowboy Streetlight Concealments LLC roughly $22,000 since June 2018 for “video recording and reproducing equipment.” ICE paid out about $28,000 to Cowboy Streetlight Concealments over the same period of time.

It’s unclear where the DEA and ICE streetlight cameras have been installed, or where the next deployments will take place. ...

Christie Crawford, who owns Cowboy Streetlight Concealments with her husband, a Houston police officer, said she was not at liberty to discuss the company’s federal contracts in detail.

“We do streetlight concealments and camera enclosures,” Crawford told Quartz. “Basically, there’s businesses out there that will build concealments for the government and that’s what we do. They specify what’s best for them, and we make it. And that’s about all I can probably say.”

However, she added: “I can tell you this—things are always being watched. It doesn’t matter if you’re driving down the street or visiting a friend, if government or law enforcement has a reason to set up surveillance, there’s great technology out there to do it.”
...

https://qz.com/1458475/the-dea-and-ice-are-hiding-surveillance-cameras-in-streetlights/
 
Thanks to Edward Snowden, we know the extent to which major corporations are compromised by the NSA - essentially doing the domestic surveillance work that govco can't constitutionally do itself. With that in mind...

...
According to a new report, the patent application, made available in late November, would pair facial surveillance such as Rekognition, the product that Amazon is aggressively marketing to law enforcement, with Ring – a doorbell camera company that Amazon acquired in 2018.
...

https://www.theorganicprepper.com/amazons-facial-recognition-doorbell/
 
Artificial fingerprints have been developed by researchers who say they could one day be used to hack into everyday devices.

Researchers from New York University and Michigan State University successfully generated what they call "DeepMasterPrints" earlier this year. These are machine-learning methods that act as a kind of "masterkey" which, the researchers claim, have the potential to unlock around one in three fingerprint-protected smartphones.
...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/28/res...prints-could-hack-a-third-of-smartphones.html

I actually think this is a positive development. As it becomes known that biometric locks (at least finger print for now) are not secure, they will stop being used.
 
Arguably any data that involves electronic storage and retrieval is vulnerable to hacking.

Im still pondering how we might be able to prove beyond doubt that we are the human we claim to be.
 
Google is a front end data miner for the NSA, et. al. You can rest assured that while corporate customers get "de-identified" data, the NSA et.al. have access to the full database...

... A new initiative from Sidewalk Labs, the city-building subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, has set out to change that.

The program, known as Replica, offers planning agencies the ability to model an entire city’s patterns of movement. Like “SimCity,” Replica’s “user-friendly” tool deploys statistical simulations to give a comprehensive view of how, when, and where people travel in urban areas. It’s an appealing prospect for planners making critical decisions about transportation and land use. In recent months, transportation authorities in Kansas City, Portland, and the Chicago area have signed up to glean its insights. The only catch: They’re not completely sure where the data is coming from.

Typical urban planners rely on processes like surveys and trip counters that are often time-consuming, labor-intensive, and outdated. Replica, instead, uses real-time mobile location data. As Nick Bowden of Sidewalk Labs has explained, “Replica provides a full set of baseline travel measures that are very difficult to gather and maintain today, including the total number of people on a highway or local street network, what mode they’re using (car, transit, bike, or foot), and their trip purpose (commuting to work, going shopping, heading to school).”

To make these measurements, the program gathers and de-identifies the location of cellphone users, which it obtains from unspecified third-party vendors. It then models this anonymized data in simulations — creating a synthetic population that faithfully replicates a city’s real-world patterns but that “obscures the real-world travel habits of individual people,” as Bowden told The Intercept.

The program comes at a time of growing unease with how tech companies use and share our personal data — and raises new questions about Google’s encroachment on the physical world.

Last month, the New York Times revealed how sensitive location data is harvested by third parties from our smartphones — often with weak or nonexistent consent provisions. A Motherboard investigation in early January further demonstrated how cell companies sell our locations to stalkers and bounty hunters willing to pay the price.

For some, the Google sibling’s plans to gather and commodify real-time location data from millions of cellphones adds to these concerns. “The privacy concerns are pretty extreme,” Ben Green, an urban technology expert and author of “The Smart Enough City,” wrote in an email to The Intercept. “Mobile phone location data is extremely sensitive.” These privacy concerns have been far from theoretical. An Associated Press investigation showed that Google’s apps and website track people even after they have disabled the location history on their phones. Quartz found that Google was tracking Android users by collecting the addresses of nearby cellphone towers even if all location services were turned off. The company has also been caught using its Street View vehicles to collect the Wi-Fi location data from phones and computers.
...

More: https://theintercept.com/2019/01/28/google-alphabet-sidewalk-labs-replica-cellphone-data/
 
Working out at the Space center, we all have smart badges. These things have RFID technology in them that track our movements down to around three inches. Security can form a map of your whereabouts at any time and do so in real-time. They can and do watch people to track their movements in and around the station when they are unsure of their intentions, especially if they are foreign nationals.
 
From the UK:
A man has been fined after refusing to be scanned by controversial facial recognition cameras being trialled by the Metropolitan Police.

The force had put out a statement saying “anyone who declines to be scanned will not necessarily be viewed as suspicious”. However, witnesses said several people were stopped after covering their faces or pulling up hoods.

Campaign group Big Brother Watch said one man had seen placards warning members of the public that automatic facial recognition cameras were filming them from a parked police van.

“He simply pulled up the top of his jumper over the bottom of his face, put his head down and walked past,” said director Silkie Carlo.

“There was nothing suspicious about him at all … you have the right to avoid [the cameras], you have the right to cover your face. I think he was exercising his rights.”
Read more

Ms Carlo, who was monitoring Thursday’s trial in Romford, London, told The Independent she saw a plainclothed police officer follow the man before a group of officers “pulled him over to one side”.

She said they demanded to see the man’s identification, which he gave them, and became “accusatory and aggressive”.

“The guy told them to p*** off and then they gave him the £90 public order fine for swearing,” Ms Carlo added. “He was really angry.”

A spokesperson said officers were instructed to “use their judgment” on whether to stop people who avoid cameras.
...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...met-police-face-cover-man-fined-a8756936.html
 
actually I do not 'like' the above comment but thank you for bringing it to my attention

I guess blacking my face and creating a big smile with facepaint is ok though (-;
 
Big brother is watching you. England is a truly fucked up place any more. But you have to ask yourself this, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
 
...
Get ready, folks, because the government— helped along by Congress (which adopted legislation allowing police to collect and test DNA immediately following arrests), President Trump (who signed the Rapid DNA Act into law), the courts (which have ruled that police can routinely take DNA samples from people who are arrested but not yet convicted of a crime), and local police agencies (which are chomping at the bit to acquire this new crime-fighting gadget)—is embarking on a diabolical campaign to create a nation of suspects predicated on a massive national DNA database.
...

More: https://www.rutherford.org/publicat...iabolical_plan_to_create_a_nation_of_suspects
 
Lawmakers and civil liberties advocates are calling on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to halt plans to begin using facial recognition technology on nearly all departing air passengers within the next four years.

The agency’s plan has reignited the fight over the sensitive technology. Critics say facial recognition technology is not ready for large-scale deployment and that DHS has failed to establish specific rules to prevent abuses and policies for handling the collected data.

“The Department of Homeland Security is plowing ahead with its program to scan travelers’ faces, and it’s doing so in absence of adequate safeguards against privacy invasions, data breaches, and racial bias,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement to The Hill. “Homeland Security should change course and stop its deployment of facial recognition technology until it meets that standard.”

Markey and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) have raised these concerns with DHS over the past year, releasing statements and sending letters to the agency urging it to halt the program until it puts specific safeguards in place. So far, according to Markey’s office, the department has ignored their warnings.

DHS has been implementing its “biometric exit” program, which photographs some visitors when they are departing the U.S., for years, expanding to 15 major airports with plans to reach five more. President Trump in 2017 signed an executive order speeding up the rollout of the face-scanning technology, and Congress in 2016 authorized up to $1 billion over the next 10 years to implement the program.

The stated purpose of the program is to identify non-U.S. citizens who have overstayed their visas, but it captures the faces of U.S. citizens as well. The agency says it has successfully identified 7,000 people at major U.S. airports who have overstayed their visas.

The DHS report published last week, which was provided to the House and Senate judiciary committees, is the latest sign that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — DHS’s largest federal law enforcement agency — is fast-tracking the implementation of the program at the country’s largest airports.

That has privacy advocates in an uproar. They say DHS is ignoring concerns that facial recognition technology wrongly recognizes certain populations at higher rates and allegations that the agency ignored formal procedures required to implement such a wide-ranging program.

“DHS wants to scan your face before it has issued formal rules to protect your privacy,” Harrison Rudolph, an associate at Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology, told The Hill. “Without rules, there could be little that stands in the way of DHS breaking its privacy promises. That’s deeply alarming.”

According to a tranche of documents released by the Electronic Privacy Information Center last month, CBP skipped parts of the formal rulemaking process that requires federal agencies to solicit public comments before they adopt technology that will be used on U.S. citizens.

Privacy advocates have continued to call for CBP to undertake a rulemaking process, which would allow them to push for safeguards and limits on its data collection.

As it stands, CBP says it keeps the photos of those identified as U.S. citizens for 14 days before disposing of them. The agency keeps photographs of non-U.S. citizens for up to 75 years.

Neema Singh Guliani, a senior legislative council at the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Hill that she is concerned by CBP’s refusal to establish rules around how passengers can opt out of face scanning.

“The agency has not undertaken any rulemaking to clarify how it’s going to use this information, what privacy protections will apply, what recourse individuals may have in the event that their privacy is violated,” Guliani said. “They haven’t provided clarity or information as to how U.S. citizens or others can opt out of face recognition.”

The agency says it is working to propose a rule that would require all travelers, including U.S. citizens, to be photographed. But it is unclear what safeguards that would include.

Currently, CBP says passengers are welcome to decline to participate in the program. But according to the airlines partnering with the agency, very few passengers do so.
...

More: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/440323-dhs-plan-for-face-scanning-at-airports-sparks-alarm
 
Do you know where you were five years ago? Did you have an Android phone at the time? It turns out Google might know—and it might be telling law enforcement.

In a new article, the New York Times details a little-known technique increasingly used by law enforcement to figure out everyone who might have been within certain geographic areas during specific time periods in the past. The technique relies on detailed location data collected by Google from most Android devices as well as iPhones and iPads that have Google Maps and other apps installed. This data resides in a Google-maintained database called “Sensorvault,” and because Google stores this data indefinitely, Sensorvault “includes detailed location records involving at least hundreds of millions of devices worldwide and dating back nearly a decade.”

The data Google is turning over to law enforcement is so precise that one deputy police chief said it “shows the whole pattern of life.” It’s collected even when people aren’t making calls or using apps, which means it can be even more detailed than data generated by cell towers.
...

More: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/04/googles-sensorvault-can-tell-police-where-youve-been
 
I would expect the average villain to know this and leave their phone at home if they are planning a criminal act ........

Ok there might be some who are unaware or too dumb / thoughtless but they are never going to be master criminals.

And there might be a few historic crimes that identify potential perps.
No bad thing for crimes like murder and kidnap.
 
There are other issues at play. Innocents become suspects if they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Individuals can be targeted for harassment by the state or rogue actors within the state. Information is power.
 
...
This report provides a detailed description and analysis of a mobile app that police and other officials use to communicate with the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP), one of the main systems Chinese authorities use for mass surveillance in Xinjiang. Human Rights Watch first reported on the IJOP in February 2018, noting the policing program aggregates data about people and flags to officials those it deems potentially threatening; some of those targeted are detained and sent to political education camps and other facilities. But by “reverse engineering” this mobile app, we now know specifically the kinds of behaviors and people this mass surveillance system targets.

The findings have broader significance, providing an unprecedented window into how mass surveillance actually works in Xinjiang, because the IJOP system is central to a larger ecosystem of social monitoring and control in the region. They also shed light on how mass surveillance functions in China. While Xinjiang’s systems are particularly intrusive, their basic designs are similar to those the police are planning and implementing throughout China.

Many—perhaps all—of the mass surveillance practices described in this report appear to be contrary to Chinese law. They violate the internationally guaranteed rights to privacy, to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and to freedom of association and movement. Their impact on other rights, such as freedom of expression and religion, is profound.
...

More: https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/05/...engineering-xinjiang-police-mass-surveillance

The fuzzy logic matrix describe above reminded me that the USA has a similar system in place already, albiet without the scope or draconian conditions in the Chinese system (for now?). It's the NCTC's disposition matrix.
 
San Francisco could become the first city in the nation to ban any city department from using facial recognition under a proposal that says any benefits of the technology outweigh its impact on civil rights, and Oakland may not be far behind.

In San Francisco, a Board of Supervisors committee is scheduled to vote Monday on the Stop Secret Surveillance Ordinance, which would make it illegal for any department to “obtain, retain, access or use” any face-recognition technology or information obtained from such technology.

The proposal, introduced by San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin in January, would also require public input and the supervisors’ approval before agencies buy surveillance technology with public funds. That includes the purchase of license plate readers, toll readers, closed-circuit cameras, body cams, and biometrics technology and software for forecasting criminal activity.

“The propensity for facial recognition technology to endanger civil rights and civil liberties substantially outweighs its purported benefits, and the technology will exacerbate racial injustice and threaten our ability to live free of continuous government monitoring,” the ordinance reads.

Other Bay Area cities and counties, including Berkeley, Palo Alto and Santa Clara County, have similar rules in place about buying surveillance tech, but a San Francisco ban on facial recognition would set a precedent. In Oakland, a proposal to add a ban on facial recognition to city regulations about surveillance tech is set to be considered by Oakland’s Public Safety Committee later this month.
...

More: https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/0...t-cities-in-nation-to-ban-facial-recognition/
 
So yeah, about that report posted above (#30) about China's Draconian surveillance system...

Australia is preparing to debut its version of the Chinese regime’s high-tech system for monitoring and controlling its citizens. The launch, to take place in the northern city of Darwin, will include systems to monitor people’s activity via their cell phones.

The new system is based on monitoring programs in Shenzhen, China, where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is testing its Social Credit System. Officials on the Darwin council traveled to Shenzhen, according to NT News, to “have a chance to see exactly how their Smart Technology works prior to being fully rolled out.”

In Darwin, they’ve already constructed “poles, fitted with speakers, cameras and Wi-Fi,” according to NT News, to monitor people, their movements around the city, the websites they visit, and what apps they use. The monitoring will be done mainly by artificial intelligence, but will alert authorities based on set triggers.

Just as in China, the surveillance system is being branded as a “smart city” program, and while Australian officials claim its operations are benign, they’ve announced it functions to monitor cell phone activity and “virtual fences” that will trigger alerts if people cross them.
...

More: https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinas-big-brother-social-control-goes-to-australia_2898104.html
 
`

Amazon Staff Are Listening To Alexa Conversations

"Over 100 million Amazon Echos have been sold as of the start of 2019: That’s no small number. But some people might be looking to throw away their device after it emerged that Amazon employs thousands of people around the world to listen to voice recordings captured in Echo users’ homes and offices...."

`

I don't have one, won't have one, but how many people do you visit that do or might? Big brother is watching AND listening.

.
 
racist comments all carefully logged and available for future use but ironically, if they hear someone being 'kashoggied' its none of their business ..........
 
...
What isn’t obvious on Ever’s website or app — except for a brief reference that was added to the privacy policy after NBC News reached out to the company in April — is that the photos people share are used to train the company’s facial recognition system, and that Ever then offers to sell that technology to private companies, law enforcement and the military.

In other words, what began in 2013 as another cloud storage app has pivoted toward a far more lucrative business known as Ever AI — without telling the app’s millions of users.
...

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/securi...otos-ever-app-then-company-used-them-n1003371

No such thing as a free lunch.
 
Police fined a pedestrian £90 for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face when he saw a controversial facial recognition camera on a street in London.

Officers set up the camera on a van in Romford, East London, which then cross-checked photos of faces of passers-by against a database of wanted criminals.

But one man was unimpressed about being filmed and covered his face with his hat and jacket, before being stopped by officers who took his picture anyway.

After being pulled aside, the man told police: 'If I want to cover me face, I'll cover me face. Don't push me over when I'm walking down the street.'
...
The Metropolitan Police uses facial recognition technology called NeoFace, developed by Japanese IT firm NEC, which matches faces up to a so-called watch list of offenders wanted by the police and courts for existing offences. Cameras scan faces in its view measuring the structure of each face, creating a digital version that is searched up against the watch list. If a match is detected, an officer on the scene is alerted, who will be able to see the camera image and the watch list image, before deciding whether to stop the individual.
...
Silkie Carlo, the director of civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, was at the scene holding a placard saying 'stop facial recognition' - before she asked an officer about the man they had taken aside: 'What's your suspicion?'

The officer replied: 'The fact that he's walked past clearly masking his face from recognition and covered his face. It gives us grounds to stop him and verify.'
...
Big Brother Watch has previously said the technology is a 'breach of fundamental rights to privacy and freedom of assembly'.

They have monitored the officers and say police treat those who avoid the cameras with suspicion.

But the police insist people can decline to be scanned without arousing suspicion and the move is necessary to crack down on spiralling violence crime.
...
Ms Carlo told MailOnline: 'It is important to note that police are now days away from making a decision about the future of facial recognition in the UK.

'We believe it has no place in a democracy and we will continue with our legal challenge against the Met if they do go ahead with it.

'We believe we have a huge amount of public support for our campaign and have crowdfunded £10,000 to bring the legal challenge.
Campaigners say the use of the technology (file image) is a step too far towards a police state

'This is a turning point for civil liberties in the UK. If police push ahead with facial recognition surveillance, members of the public could be tracked across Britain's colossal CCTV networks.

'For a nation that opposed ID cards and rejected the national DNA database, the notion of live facial recognition turning citizens into walking ID cards is chilling.

'This China-style mass surveillance tool is the very antithesis of British democratic freedom and police using it on our streets sets a dangerous example to countries around the world.

'It would be disastrous for policing and the future of civil liberties and we urge police to drop it for good.'
...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...estrian-90-facial-recognition-camera-row.html
 
An Arizona company developing a new type of high-altitude, long-range surveillance platform just completed a 16-day mission during which massive balloons floated over four western U.S. states, all part of an effort to someday keep them aloft for months at a time.

World View Enterprises Inc. builds what it calls Stratollites, a system designed to offer the type of coverage satellites afford but without the need to launch incredibly expensive rockets into space. Effectively unmanned balloons, the untethered platforms operate with surveillance equipment payloads of as much as 220 pounds at altitudes of 50,000 to 75,000 feet, far above commercial air traffic.

They will be able to monitor mines, pipelines, transit infrastructure — and perhaps the contents of your fenced-off backyard — in hyper-accurate detail.

The company plans to start selling its commercial product early next year and has spoken with several potential commercial and military customers, Chief Executive Officer Ryan Hartman said in an interview. World View sees its customer base as companies that operate crucial industrial and commercial infrastructure.

The platform, navigated remotely using a unique altitude control system, can provide imagery that’s superior to orbiting vehicles, Hartman contends, because “we’re five times closer to the Earth than the nearest satellite.” He said “our imagination is sort of our limit with regards to where and how these systems can be used. Certainly there is a market in target surveillance and reconnaissance on a global scale.

“There’s a very real potential here that these kinds of systems will lead to a pervasive aerial surveillance.”
...

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-surveillance-balloons-stratollites-20190607-story.html
 
France is poised to become the first European country to use facial recognition technology to give citizens a secure digital identity -- whether they want it or not.

Saying it wants to make the state more efficient, President Emmanuel Macron’s government is pushing through plans to roll out an ID program, dubbed Alicem, in November, earlier than an initial Christmas target. The country’s data regulator says the program breaches the European rule of consent and a privacy group is challenging it in France’s highest administrative court. It took a hacker just over an hour to break into a “secure” government messaging app this year, raising concerns about the state’s security standards.

None of that is deterring the French interior ministry.

“The government wants to funnel people to use Alicem and facial recognition,” said Martin Drago, a lawyer member of the privacy group La Quadrature du Net that filed the suit against the state. “We’re heading into mass usage of facial recognition. (There’s) little interest in the importance of consent and choice.” The case, filed in July, won’t suspend Alicem.

With the move, France will join states around the world rushing to create “digital identities” to give citizens secure access to everything from their taxes and banks to social security and utility bills. Singapore uses facial recognition and has signed an accord to help the U.K. prepare its own ID system. India uses iris scans.

France says the ID system won’t be used to keep tabs on residents. Unlike in China and Singapore, the country won’t be integrating the facial recognition biometric into citizens’ identity databases. In fact, the interior ministry, which developed the Alicem app, says the facial recognition data collected will be deleted when the enrollment process is over. That hasn’t stopped people from worrying about its potential misuse.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...nwide-facial-recognition-id-plan?srnd=premium

To the bolded part (emphasis mine): Trust us, we're from the government!
 
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