Posted on 03/28/2014 5:21:56 AM PDT by upchuck
It's already too late to stop the ubiquitous tracking and monitoring of the public through biometrics, says Peter Waggett, Programme Leader at IBM's Emerging Technology Group. We need to stop worrying about prevention, and start working out how to make the most of data garnered from that kind of surveillance.
"We're fighting the wrong battle when we ask should we stop people being observed. That is not going to be feasible. We need to understand how to use that data better," urged Waggett, who was speaking as part of a Nesta panel debate on what biometrics mean for the future of privacy.
"I've been working in biometrics for 20 years, and it's reaching a tipping point where it's going to be impossible not to understand where people are and what they are doing. Everything will be monitored. It's part of the reason why when we put together the definition of biometrics it included biological and behavioural characteristics -- it can be anything."
To back up his point, Waggett identified a few of the futures once portrayed in science fiction movies, now a reality. Minority Report is generally the go to film for these kinds of comparisons. But it's the commercial aspects of the film Waggett flagged up, rather than the gesture technology. In the film, the protagonist walks into a shop where an advert immediately pops up and draws on his past preferences to offer up some suggestions. "The one thing they got wrong is you won't recognise you're being scanned -- the flashing red light in the film is for effect, but all that's now feasible."
It is a perfect example of how we need to be aware, now more than ever, of what data we are giving up, and, for companies, how best that data can be used without infringing on customer privacy and potentially threatening that relationship.
The EyeSee mannequins fitted in stores across Europe, Canada and the US in 2012 to gather age, sex and racial data on retail customers using facial recognition, so that stores can market their stores accordingly, are a great example of how not to engender customer trust. While just this week Iconeme, a technology and design company, has launched its VMBeacon mannequin system, which uses beacon technology in smartphones to automatically alert customers to product details via an app. When a customer comes within 100m of one of the mannequins, they will receive an alert about the available content, including details on the items the mannequin is wearing and links to purchase them straight from the shop's website. It operates 24/7, so a passerby can buy an item when window-shopping, rather than entering the store.
Read the rest of the article here: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/26/biometrics-the-good-and-bad
In a world where there are no secrets and no privacy, will people try to behave better or just act like animals and say “everybody does it”?
No.
Sure it is. We just need to be willing to [verb removed to avoid suspension] the people who are monitoring us...
Oh great, now the Mrs will no longer have to rely on telepathy to know what you’re thinking or have bought for CHRISTmas.
The advertising hoardings and mannequins will snitch on you.
The more we rely and worship technology the more our lives will be oppressed.
A big problem for those who are concerned about privacy and want to keep government small is that preventing this type of tech being used would require making government larger and more powerful.
Too much more of this, and I’ll be about ready to go ‘off grid’. That isn’t very easy to do either.
Those of us that own property of any size and wish to go off grid, just how do we handle property taxes? Most counties are delighted to possess the property, sell it at “auction” to a well connected member of the local ‘good ol’ boy network’, and use the proceeds to pay your tax bill for you. Property taxes and what Imminent Domain has become have made home/land ownership into a joke. Their rulings regarding Imminent Domain and 0bamacare were two of the worst rulings by the Supreme Court during my lifetime.
Take your off grid refuge to a State or National park? You’ll probably wake up one morning, staring down the barrel of an MP5 and surrounded by a park police SWAT team that just love to get all dressed up to hunt down and exterminate people like you....
bfl
You can nullify the system by using a ‘dumb phone’ and paying in cash.
I recall reading a scifi book decades ago in which one of the characters, upon competing his business in the head, is confronted, as the toilet gurgles away, with a message in a display built into the lavatory mirror, advising him to cut back on potassium-rich food and notifying him that he had been scheduled for an appointment with the urologybot in the ship’s medical unit for that afternoon.
The scary thing is, that type of scenario is not too farfetched with today’s technology. Scary, but at the same time cheering. Imagine your toilet analyzing bodily waste, making dietary recommendations, prescribing meds, etc. (but also notifying your doctor, and maybe the government and employer?).
Off grid doesn’t mean disappear entirely. So long as you pay your property taxes etc they’ll leave you alone. They’re going to know about you somehow anyway, just as governments have for all time, so don’t be under the delusion of total secrecy. Just cut all expenses as you can, and use auto-pay interest-bearing accounts for the rest.
And wearing a pollen mask.
Just need to prevent them from knowing how many of what weapons you own and how much ammunition you keep... and what you had for dinner last night.
bkmk
"I for one, welcome our new alien overlords."
-Kent Brockman
Didn’t IBM collaborate with the Nazis, providing technology that “made the trains run more efficiently?”
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