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How private is your personal information? Even if you don’t use social media, social media is using you.
Facial recognition technology has been used by law enforcement and intelligence gathering agencies for the last century. Remember how police dramas always have victims looking through books of images to identify perpetrators?
So what protections exist for the average, law-abiding citizen who just wants to be left alone?
No Protections (Yet) Against Collecting Facial Recognition Data
Cameras are the main tools that collect data about us, particularly our faces. Security cameras help build intelligence and police databases. As more police forces now require officers to wear body cameras, will these images also be collected?
Police are “collecting a lot of information that could impact a lot of completely innocent people,” statesMichael German, a former FBI agent now with the Brennan Center for Justice, in an article appearing recently in The New York Times. The FBI’s Biometric Center of Excellence is developing sophisticated facial and gait recognition technology to identify extensive details, even how an individual moves.
Currently, we depend on the goodwill of local communities that balk against using technology that gets so, well, personal. Boston tested and rejected facial recognition tools in 2013, deeming it too invasive. Pressure from citizens and civil rights leaders persuaded the city council of Oakland, California to halt development of a center, backed by federal funds, that would link surveillance cameras around the city to license plate readers and “gunshot microphones.” Instead, it formed a committee to study privacy and access concerns. For now, individuals can turn to reputable sources that track cybersecurity and identity issues to stay informed.
Will There be a Backlash Against Invasion of Privacy?
More Americans are aware of and concerned about the lack of privacy protections in today’s cyber-soaked world, according to research conducted by the Pew Research Center. Pew surveyed 607 adults in the wake of Edward Snowden‘s revelations about cellphone tapping and Internet-based spying conducted by government security agencies.
Pew also found people are split over whether to assume new acquaintances will search the Internet for information about them. Interestingly, just 62% said they’ve done Internet searches to see what’s out there about them, and a mere 6% received alerts every time their name came up online.
People under age 50 seem to be the ones most proactive to investigate and take steps to protect their privacy and information.
Are We Imitating the Government with Parent Technology?
At the same time, the youngest Americans may very well grow up thinking electronic monitoring is acceptable.
The technology market is currently booming with devices and apps that allow parents to monitor children’s movements in the name of safety. Trax24 and Canary both use GPS tools to monitor where children are and to report when smartphones are being used inside a car. It also alerts parents when children are heading to areas deemed off-limits.
When I read this novel a number of years ago I was certain that he had been contracted by the fossil fuel industry to write it. It just seemed so much a anti-science statement with an appendix loaded with cherry-picked climate data to cast aspersions on global warming. Why would he, with a background in science and medicine, become such a climate change sceptic? Call it politicized science if not paid for opinion writing.
From the pages of the Heartland Institute, the Koch Brothers’ bastion of sanctimonious propaganda regarding climate change science, comes the following in praise of Crichton’s novel:
“Was Crichton right? In an extensive analysis of State of Fear the president of The Heartland Institute…catalogues all of Crichton’s scientific claims, checks them against peer-reviewed literature, and finds Crichton’s science was as strong as his narrative skills. Crichton was right, and thanks to his popularity as a novelist, millions of people around the world now know that global warming is not a crisis.”
But since his death in 2008 Crichton’s selective data has been challenged and shown to be anything but proof that global warming is a hoax. Instead, it is Crichton’s imaginary guerilla army taking on the modern industrial world that is becoming a reality.
From the pages of Crichton’s novel to today’s reality – meet the Deep Green Resistance (DGR). Describing itself as an “analysis, a strategy, and the only organization of its kind,” DGR’s goal is to deprive the rich and powerful from stealing from the poor and destroying the planet.
And like the Environmental Liberation Front, the green guerillas Crichton writes about in State of Fear, DGR has a declared manifesto which you may find somewhat alarming. Here are its tenets:
I learned about DGR only today after reading an article in the Sunday Toronto Star that described how American FBI agents are visiting Keystone XL pipeline protesters, some of who purportedly are DGR members. Apparently the agents are just in learning mode trying to understand the goals of DGR and other anti-pipeline protest groups that have coalesced around Keystone XL.
DGR in describing DEW quotes Nelson Mandela who while on trial in South Africa in 1964, stated “I do not deny that I planned sabotage. I did not do this in a spirit of recklessness. I planned it as a result of a long and sober assessment of the political situation after many years of oppression….”
DEW is invested in building a culture of resistance to the current state of humanity. It initially plans to launch low-level acts of sabotage focused on highly visible industry targets. Its ultimate goal – ecological succession with humanity’s return to a pre-industrial state of living.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that extremists such as DGR have emerged in the fight to preserve the planet. We have seen this picture before – extremism based on misguided ideologies. In the last century eugenics, a pseudoscience, spawned the rise of Nazism and other race-based hate movements. The end result – global warfare and the murder of tens of millions.
Those in DGR may see justification in their cause. But for the rest of humanity solutions to dealing with global warming must come from leadership not wearing a balaclava.
