Did anyone see the Click programme on the BBC at lunchtime today?
It gave a frightening overview of how facial recognition cameras are being used by the police, clubs, stores and almost anyone else who thinks it is a good idea.
These networks are then sharing information.
I find it totally frightening and it makes me realise how lucky we are not to be spied on to the extent that they do in UK.
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And even the simplest Google search will show that these cameras are all over France as well. To combat terrorism to start with. Just because you havenât seen a French TV programme about them-doesnât mean theyâre not being used-especially in large cities- just as they are in the UK.
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Thank God, people arenât on the internet, drive cars, have sat navs, have credit cards or cheques, store cards, or have mobile telephones. If not our daily / life movements would be tracked & easily traceable. Ouf!
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These days I find that I hardly recognise the face in the mirror that Iâm shaving each morning, so perhaps I should get one of these cameras ?
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Not entirely sure what the issue is hereâŚ
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Only civil liberties.
Many would say that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.
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Many would, but I find that a rather naive point of view.
It is the slippery path.
Thank goodness I avoid cities and large towns.
I donât have a smartphone either or in car satnav.
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You think thatâs bad Jane, try working for someone who installed cameras in his house here so he could check when we there, for how long and what we were doing.
Personally I donât have a problem with it if it helps reduce crime or leads to the arrest of wanted criminals and as someone has already pointed out weâve been tracked for years by countless organisations/businesses without complaint.
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âonly the paranoid surviveâ - Andy Grove, ex founder and CEO of Intel.
Most surveillance / cameras are for the good of the majority, often used now as evidence in assault cases etc, traffic flow control on roads. Recognition systems aid check-in and passport free passage through airports ⌠the applications are immense.
You will not want to go out at all in any country, itâs a shame you are so fearful of this technology and its use.
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Trusting or fearing technology? I think about systems, and the people who design/ organise them, the individuals who use the equipment and for what purposes. Any kind of child-like faith in any of it looks iffy, to me. Hi tech doesnât have built in morality of its ownâŚ
I like to pay attention to gut reaction, if it seems to be iffy, with or without assurances and guarantees, it probably is.
No, of course thatâs not 100% reliable, but what is?
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Nothing to fear from technology - Iâm alive because of it! 
I try to spend time thinking about things that matter.
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I would rather my civil liberties be impinged than be blown up by a suicide bomber, see rioting on the football terrace or get property stolen
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The applications are indeed immense, however, from a security (IT, that is) standpoint the applications are positively mouth-watering if youâre up to no good. Unfortunately, most of the companies producing recognition systems have an absolute abyssal track record when it comes to securing this data. For example, those lovely x-ray full body scanners where the image was only visible to a person sitting in a room somewhere else? Yeah, that wasnât the case; the images were stored, often for months, with access available to pretty much anyone. There was a pretty big kerfuffle about it a year or two ago when this came out.
Guns donât kill people, people kill people. Having faith in technology isnât a bad thing but you have to question the motives (yes, Iâm going there) of the people who design, implement, and use it. Iâd argue a âtrust, but verifyâ approach to things like this, although itâs incredibly hard for a private citizen to verify anything ye 'ole guvâment is doing.
Abuse of technology matters 
To pull out that Benjamin Franklin quote:
Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
There is a limit to how much safety you get from this surveillance society. A suicide bomber is still very much a loose untraceable cannon as can be witnessed by reading the last, oh, 3 months worth of papers. There have been suicide bombings and other attacks where someone âwas on the radarâ but nothing happened. Yet, the powers that be are collecting a rather mind-blowing amount of data on itâs citizenry. Even if we assume they have the best intentions at heart, it only takes one bad actor to ruin the works. Either inside, Joe Q. Random Hacker who wants to see if he can, or a friendly (or unfriendly) nation state.
Itâs a fun little pickle .
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Some great points Ben but what if you just donât careâŚ
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Well, then you donât 
Although Iâd suggest you should, but then again I canât tell anyone what to do so thatâs kind of moot
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Yeah, but a lot more killing happens when people have guns than when they donât.
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Correct - but unbridled surveillance by government or private enterprises is just as dangerous. See the recent spats about Facebook and other companies collecting tons of data and profiling users. Or the recent advances in machine learning that are now able to generate pictures of people that actually do not exist, but you wouldnât know since theyâre indistinguishable from the real deal.
Things have gotten to a point where it is far too easy to obtain massive loads of information about just about everyone without oversight or proper procedures in place to protect the privacy of the people; and saying âyeah but privacy is deadâ is not cutting it anymore, we all know that privacy isnât as good as it used to be, but we can still have an expectation of privacy in our daily lives.
That, and in my opinion (and I will add that itâs a bit on the nutty side of the fruitcake) weâre getting too close to a 1984-ish situation, if we arenât there already. And thatâs dangerous.
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Orwellâs great mistake in 1984 was assuming we needed to be opressed.
Turns out we happily opress ourselves and will welcome the means of opression into our lives with open arms as long as it brings with it a video of a kitten doing cute and amusing things.
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Frankly I donât really care how many facts and data âtheyâ collect about me. I imagine that there are hundreds of people who buy what I buy, visit the same websites I do, go where I go, etc etc etc, there are many profiles exactly like mine. Even if they link my name to my behaviour patterns Iâm still next to anonymous, in that they donât know me or care about me as an individual. Iâm just one profile among millions. So in spite of the fact that âtheyâ may have reams of data on this virtual profile that they may or may not associate with the name Anna, my address, my vehicle plate, date of birth etc etc, I donât feel threatened or violated as I would if someone that actually knew me as a real person, collected just one piece of information about me that I didnât want that particular individual to have. Itâs the impersonal / anonymous aspect that makes the difference.
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