Several days ago New Zealand police released details of the terrorist surveillance program that lead to the arrest and detention of a number of Maori activists under NZ's new anti terrorism laws.
Much of the emerging argument centers around weather or not the media have been overly selective in the information they published but the real issue is not that journalists may have conveniently paraphrased the report, but that this report exist at all.
The fact that more and more intrusive surveillance technology is available to our police should frighten rather than reassure us. Researchers at Georgetown University in 2002 developed what they called 'Gait recognition profiling'. This technique uses CCTV monitors (as seen in banks, railway stations, etc. in NZ) to map any individuals walking style, which is as unique apparently as their DNA profile, with out that persons knowledge or consent.
Coupled with existing face recognition capabilities this technology, potentially enables CCTV systems to identify any individual from a crowd, confirm their ID by matching to their 'Gait' profile and, again potentially, link to and access any other data held about the person under surveillance.
This is fine if we only use on in rare occasions to identify real terrorists.
The question is,
. . . . is that all it will be used for?
A letter to my unanswered question
7 years ago
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