Millions of Chinese Facial Recognition Cameras Quietly Installed Across UK

Millions of Chinese Facial Recognition Cameras Quietly Installed Across U.K.

A new surveillance infrastructure is underway in the U.K, with millions of facial recognition cameras already being installed across British streets.

A new facial recognition camera, which sits inside street lights, consists of two lenses with two other indeterminate features that serve as the nose and mouth. The cameras also hang from a pole ringed with spikes to protect its hardware.

Millions of these cameras have quietly been installed throughout Britain in recent months.

The cameras are made by a Chinese state-affiliated company, Dahua, and are equipped with controversial facial recognition software, a technology favored by Beijing and other totalitarian regimes.

What’s more, Dahua also has a worrying track record of severe cybersecurity vulnerabilities, which has led to mass hacks of its cameras – even the company admitted there is a ‘very high potential for hacks.

 

Human rights abuses

The company has also been implicated in human rights abuses conducted by the Chinese Communist Party. Such software is used to pick out anyone with the distinctive features of an Uyghur Muslim – the ethnic minority currently persecuted in China. Dahua refers to the sadistic feature as ‘Real Time Uyghur Warnings.’

The extent of China’s human rights atrocities against Uyghur Muslims, reported only last week, revealed ‘credible evidence’ of torture, possibly amounting to ‘crimes against humanity,’ according to the U.N.

The abuse included horrific acts such as rape, water-boarding, injecting Uygurs against their will, and strapping them to torture aids known as ‘tiger chairs.’

Despite the horrific background of this technology, they are now being quietly installed in the U.K.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has banned cameras made by Dahua and Hikvision due to “security threats.”

But the companies deny this, with Hikvision arguing that it is “committed to upholding the right to privacy and protecting people and property.”

 

Totalitarian state

Privacy campaigners and politicians have expressed concern about the implementation of such technology.

Earlier this year, the first legal action against Live Facial Recognition (LFR) in shops was launched after privacy group Big Brother Watch filed a complaint to the Information Commissioner about Southern Co-Op’s ‘Orwellian’ systems.

As The Daily Fetched reported in July:

According to Big Brother Watch, the UK-based non-profit privacy campaigning organization, Southern Co-op’s camera system “breaches data protection,” leaving shoppers facing themselves being placed on a watch list without their knowledge.

 

Big Brother Watch Legal and Policy Officer, Madeleine Stone, Told The Daily Fetched at the time:

 

“The Southern Co-op’s use of live facial recognition eradicates shoppers’ right to privacy and is highly likely to breach data protection law. Innocent people could be placed on secret watchlists without due process, meaning they could be spied on, blacklisted in multiple stores, and even denied food shopping. This use of facial recognition technology is deeply chilling and we urge the public to boycott the Southern Co-op whilst it continues to spy on shoppers.”

 

Professor Fraser Sampson, the U.K. Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner, told the Daily Mail:

“Integrated facial recognition systems will soon be capable of everyday enforcement, such as stopping fare dodgers at ticket barriers, finding people wanted for anything from burglary to parking fines, or tracking those who have flouted immigration rules or broken curfews.”

“But there is no legal framework around how serious an offence has to be before this technology is used, perhaps on people, for example, breaking Covid rules.”

“And people who have given their photograph when buying a travel card probably wouldn’t have consented to this later being used to find them in a crowd.”

Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, warned that “Britons have always closely guarded our privacy . . . but we are sleepwalking into a society where everything we do, say, or spend is tracked and monitored.”

“The potential for Britain’s enormous structure of mass surveillance, including facial recognition, to be used against its own citizens — whether a cyber attack or a conflict — is phenomenal, and poses a serious danger to our security and freedom.”

https://www.dailyfetched.com/millions-of-chinese-facial-recognition-cameras-quietly-installed-across-u-k/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

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2 Responses to “Millions of Chinese Facial Recognition Cameras Quietly Installed Across UK”

  1. ian says:

    Another glimpse of a potentially dystopian future. As many of you might be aware, I catch moles and occasionally trap rabbits too for local farms. These interests though they don’t float many peoples’ boat, have led me to read and research many trapping books and videos and study it myself. Most animals are wary of traps as many will know if they tried to catch a rat or a mole in their garden. It is really important that by the time an animal realises something is wrong, it’s too late to go back.

    That is the point that we are rapidly approaching, and the analogy will also be how we are viewed by our trappers. Rats at best, or even cockroaches. The trappers seem to be acting randomly, but it is anything but. It is a continuous ongoing process, with many facets which can be left for a while while others take up the running. We are being culled, while the remainder who survive will be destined at best, for a dystopian Chinese style social credit system , where if you don’t comply, you, your family, and even your neighbours, might all be punished. I don’t think Joe public will listen, they still think Arab Hijackers, can cut 4″ thick steel columns with 5mm thick aluminium plane cladding.

  2. David 2 says:

    The WEF who represent the powers that are trying to entrap humanity into a matrix of artificial intelligence. Scored a major victory when the got so many people to lockdown, social distance, wear masks and take multiple gene editing injections.

    The majority of people accept whatever propaganda they are fed. They never question sufficiently to understand the cause that created the effect.

    They are so influenced by main stream propaganda, that trying to change their mindset is almost impossible.