#Snowden says Australia watching its citizens ‘all the time,’ slams new metadata laws http://on.rt.com/s4ick1
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Australia to allow Facebook photos to be used in national surveillance database – report
Australia to allow Facebook photos to be used in national surveillance database – report
Photos from social media websites like Facebook could be used in an Australian counter-terrorism database. Critics are concerned about the system’s lack of “transparency,” but the new legislation can come into effect without being passed by parliament.
Senior officials from the attorney general’s office confirmed late on Tuesday that photos from social media could be used in the system, which is known as “the capability,” the Guardian reports.
The Australian Justice Minister, Michael Keenan, announced last month that the government would be spending US$13.3 million to develop a database (The National Facial Biometric Matching Capability), which would store still images that law enforcement officers could use to track terrorists.
It had been believed that the images would come from official documents such as drivers’ licenses, passport photographs or images taken from security cameras. The government claims that the technology is necessary as a human face is unique, just like a person’s fingerprints.
the #capability is being rolled out with no input from the public – we might want to change that #estimates
“It keeps Australians safe by protecting their identity and it allows our law enforcement authorities to accurately and efficiently identify someone who might take their interest,” Keenan said in September, as cited by ABC.
However, it is now apparent that the database will be able to lift photographs from social networks, such as Facebook and Instagram.
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“This is No Longer Fiction” – The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here
“This is No Longer Fiction” – The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here
Whenever cryptographer and computer security specialist Bruce Schneier issues a warning about something, I pay close attention.
What follows are excerpts from a recent piece he wrote for Forbestitled, The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here:
ID checks were a common response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, but they’ll soon be obsolete. You won’t have to show your ID, because you’ll be identified automatically. A security camera will capture your face, and it’ll be matched with your name and a whole lot of other information besides. Welcome to the world of automatic facial recognition. Those who have access to databases of identified photos will have the power to identify us. Yes, it’ll enable some amazing personalized services; but it’ll also enable whole new levels of surveillance. The underlying technologies are being developed today, and there are currently no rules limiting their use.
Read that again: “There are no rules limiting their use.”
Walk by a policeman, and she will know your name, address, criminal record, and with whom you routinely are seen. The potential for discrimination is enormous, especially in low-income communities where people are routinely harassed for things like unpaid parking tickets and other minor violations. And in a country where people are arrested for their political views, the use of this technology quickly turns into a nightmare scenario.
The critical technology here is computer face recognition. Traditionally it has been pretty poor, but it’s slowly improving. A computer is now as good as a person. Already Google’s algorithms can accurately match child and adult photos of the same person, and Facebook has an algorithm that works by recognizing hair style, body shape, and body language — and works even when it can’t see faces.
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