Hello friends
just though I'd update the list with some recent media reports on
matters Surveillant. The 'face recognition' technology which I
posted on the list a few weeks back, has come into operation in
Newham, East London, since mid-October. A total of 144 cameras are
installed in the Newham borough on the Underground, in shopping
centres, and near schools. As ever with the installation of CCTv, it
is intended to 'reduce crime and anti-social behaviour'. This new
form of CCTV technology is pre-programmed to scan the faces of crowds
and match them with facial profiles of people who have already been
convicted of a crime. The profile is supplied by the Metropolitan
police database. When a face match occurs, the person's image and a
coded number will appear on the operator's screen.
The new system
works according to 'advance notice' of 'suspect' individuals; this
raises issues about the way in which 'crime prevention' systems often
works to target certain groups which have 'traditionally' been
targetted as suspect by a human operator. It's use is justified on
the grounds that it is a more 'surgical' way of identifying
'suspects'.
However, it opens up broader questions as well. While it is claimed
to have a potential eighty per cent success rate, the civil
rights organisation, Liberty have pointed out that there is,
conversely, a one-in-five chance of a mistake being made.
Secondly, it operates in terms of good, old-fashioned deterrence, in
that a person with a previous record comes under more scrutiny, and
interference with their privacy, on the basis of what they might do in
the future. How can this be reconciled with the principle of
innocence until proven guilty?
Thirdly, I am concerned with the way in which the surveillance canopy
is extended by the exchange of information between local government,
the police information system, the designers of the system - Software
& Systems International, and the security businesses and police
response units. Is this exchange of information not regulated by the
Data Protection legislation? Does anyone know if there is a loophole
in the legsilation that enables this cross-institutional web of
surveillance?
Finally, one of the questions that interests me about trying to
critically analyse the use of technology as a means of enhancing
existing normative attitudes about 'criminality' and 'suspect
individuals', is how to find a vocabulary to sustain arguments about
'power' and new technology. Even now, civil libertarians rely on a
notion of the 'private individual' whose personal integrity and
privacy are penetrated and undermined by CCTV, and other information
gathering technologies. On the other hand, it is currently being
argued that new technologies from the Internet to 'spy cameras' are
eroding the concept of the 'private' individual, by rendering all
aspects of 'privacy' open to the publc domain. Does anybody know of
any articles, journals, websites that might address these questions?
Mary Corcoran.
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