Orwell, digital prisons and the double-edged sword of surveillance

[AdamG]

Ask critics of police face recognition why they're so skeptical and they'll likely cite unreliability as one factor. What if the technology flags an innocent person? Unfortunately, that caution appears to have been warranted to some degree. South Wales Police are facing a backlash after they released data showing that their face recognition trial at the 2017 Champions League final misidentified thousands as potential criminals. Out out of 2,470 initial matches, 2,297 were false positives -- about 92 percent.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/polic...203500811.html

Added by Moderator, a longer article:http://www.wired.co.uk/article/face-...-hill-carnival

[AdamG]

SAN FRANCISCO -- You probably know where your Social Security card, birth certificate and other sensitive information is being stored, but what about your genetic material? If you or your child was born in California after 1983, your DNA is likely being stored by the government, may be available to law enforcement and may even be in the hands of outside researchers, CBS San Francisco's Julie Watts reports.

KPIX has learned that most parents are not getting the required notification. We've also discovered the DNA may be used for more than just research.
In light of the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook scandal and the use of unidentified DNA to catch the Golden State Killer suspect, there are new concerns about law enforcement access, and what private researchers could do with access to the DNA from every child born in the state.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/califor...CNM-00-10aac3a

[AdamG]

This just in from our friends and allies/enemies in EurAsia.

A Chinese school has equipped several classrooms with cameras that can recognize the emotions of students, introducing a potent new form of artificial intelligence into education, while also raising alarms about a novel method of monitoring children for classroom compliance.

The cameras, installed at Hangzhou No. 11 High School, are designed to automatically take attendance and track what students are doing at any moment, including reading, writing or listening.

But they also promise to provide real-time data on students’ outward expressions, tracking whether they look scared, happy, disgusted, sad, surprised, angry or neutral. The system has been touted as a way to ensure students are attentive and happy, learning quickly and, ultimately, scoring well on tests.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/worl...otion-stoking/

[AdamG]

Amazon drew the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday over a facial-recognition system offered to law-enforcement agencies that the advocacy group says can be used to violate civil rights.
In marketing materials obtained by the group, Amazon Web Services says its Rekognition system uses artificial intelligence to quickly identify people in photos and videos, enabling law enforcement to track people.

http://adage.com/article/digital/amazon/313613/

See also https://www.wired.com/story/crime-fi...tech-advances/

[AdamG]

Vietnam’s plans to vigorously police the internet took a step forward Tuesday when it adopted a cybersecurity law that requires internet companies such as Facebook and Google to store their Vietnam-based users’ data on servers in the country.

Critics say the new law could make it easier for authorities in the one-party communist state to track down critics online. Legislation passed by the National Assembly also requires internet companies to open offices in the country, which they have been hesitant to do, in addition to removing content within 24 hours at the government’s request.

Last year, China enacted a law requiring that cloud data from China-based consumers be stored in the country, sparking worries about privacy. And Vietnam has steadily increased scrutiny of what is posted online as Facebook’s reach has grown.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/vietnam...law-1528799753

[AdamG]

A couple of months stale but too good to gloss over.

China's governing Communist Party has proposed removing a clause in the constitution which limits presidencies to two five-year terms - which means President Xi Jinping could remain as leader after the end of his second term in 2023.

The controversial move has ignited discussion on Chinese social media and pushed online government censors into overdrive.

Several key terms have suddenly been subjected to heavy censorship on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like microblog since Sunday.

According to censorship-monitoring websites China Digital Times and Free Weibo, censored phrases include:

I don't agree
migration
emigration
re-election
election term
constitution amendment
constitution rules
proclaiming oneself an emperor
Winnie the Pooh

So what's going on?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-43198404

[AdamG]

Dozens of cities across China are applying an unusual forensic technique to monitor illegal drug use: chemically analysing sewage for traces of drugs, or their telltale metabolites, excreted in urine. One southern city, Zhongshan, a drug hotspot, is also monitoring waste water to evaluate the effectiveness of its drug-reduction programmes, says Li Xiqing, an environmental chemist at Peking University in Beijing who is working with police in these cities.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...egal-drug-use/

Obvious straight lines are obvious. Post yours' below.