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Content type: Examples
22nd April 2020
New versions of drones that currently issue audio warnings reminding people in Elizabeth, New Jersey to observe social distancing guidelines will incorporate sensors and fever-detecting cameras that will monitor if people are sick or failing to social distance on the trails and in the parks of Meriden, Connecticut, according to the commercial drone company Draganfly, which claims the cameras can also detect sneezing and heart and respiratory rates. The company expects to conduct pilot…
Content type: Examples
12th August 2019
New workplace technologies are generating mountains of data on workers despite a lack of clarity over how the data is used and who owns it. In offices, smart badges track interactions and sensors track fitness and health; in trucks sensors monitor drivers' performance in the name of safety. In the US state of Illinois, between July and October 2017 26 lawsuits were filed by employees alleging that their employers had violated the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act, which requires a…
Content type: Examples
12th August 2019
In November 2018, 112 civil liberties, immigrant rights groups, child welfare advocates, and privacy activists wrote a letter to the heads of the US Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security demanding an immediate halt to the HHS Office for Refugee Resettlement's practice of using information given them by detained migrant children to arrest and deport their US-based relatives and other sponsors. The policy began in April 2018, and the result has been that…
Content type: News & Analysis
25th October 2017
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has contracted one of the world’s largest arms companies to manage a huge expansion of its biometric surveillance programme.
According to a presentation seen by Privacy International, the new system, known as Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART), will scoop up a whopping 180 million new biometric transactions per year by 2022.
It will replace the Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT), which currently stores…
Content type: News & Analysis
30th December 2009
The Active Millimeter Wave body scanners that airport security officials plan to use in greater numbers after a failed attempt to explode a bomb in a plane over Detroit raise troubling questions about passenger privacy, and ultimately the technology’s utility as a security measure.
While Privacy International supports the adoption of measures that will genuinely protect the security of passengers, we are deeply concerned that airport and security authorities increasingly deploy fashionable and…
Content type: News & Analysis
29th July 2019
Picture Credit: US AID
US President Trump has been cutting aid to Central America, including a surprise cut of approximately $500m in aid to the “Northern Triangle” countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, apparently as punishment for “doing absolutely nothing” to prevent emigration to the US.
What remains of the funds is largely and deliberately being repurposed for spending on the US’s own security interests: indeed, one area which his attorney general claims will be spared from…
Content type: Examples
12th August 2019
In December 2018, Florida citizen Peter Sean Brown filed a federal lawsuit against the Monroe County Sheriff's offices for arresting and detaining him for three weeks claiming he was an illegal alien from Jamaica. Even though Brown offered to show the sheriff his birth certificate and explained he had been wrongfully detained 20 years before and the jail's own records listed his birthplace as Philadelphia, PA, the sheriff relied on a form sent by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Brown had…
Content type: News & Analysis
29th July 2019
Foto: US AID
El presidente estadounidense Trump ha estado recortando la ayuda a Centroamérica, incluyendo un recorte sorpresivo de aproximadamente 500 millones de dólares a los países del “Triángulo del Norte” (El Salvador, Guatemala y Honduras), al parecer como castigo por “no haber hecho absolutamente nada” para impedir la emigración hacia los Estados Unidos.
Los fondos restantes están siendo reorientados,en su gran mayoría y deliberadamente, al gasto para defender los intereses de…
Content type: News & Analysis
13th December 2018
Taylor Swift may be tracking you, particularly if you were at her Rose Bowl show in May.
According to an article published by Vanity Fair, at Swift’s concert at the California stadium, fans were drawn to a kiosk where they could watch rehearsal clips. At the same time – and without their knowledge - facial-recognition cameras were scanning them, and the scans were then reportedly sent to a “command post” in Nashville, where they were compared to photos of people who are known to be Swift’s…
Content type: News & Analysis
25th October 2017
From unlocking a smartphone or getting through an airport, the use of an iris, fingerprint, or your face for identity verification is already widespread, and the market for it is set to rocket. While the technology is not new, its capability and uses are. As people, biometrics offers us much, but risks ultimately only serve data-hungry industries and government agencies: in the name of efficiency and security, it has the potential to bring chaos and vulnerability.
Obtaining reliable biometric…
Content type: Examples
12th August 2019
In October 2018, the answers to a FOIA request filed by the Project on Government Oversight revealed that in June 2018 Amazon pitched its Rekognition facial recognition system to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials as a way to help them target or identify immigrants. Amazon has also marketed Rekognition to police departments, and it is used by officers in Oregon and Florida even though tests have raised questions about its accuracy. Hundreds of Amazon workers protested by writing a…
Content type: Examples
20th May 2020
Amazon has spent $10 million to buy 1,500 cameras to take the temperature of workers from the Chinese firm Zhejiang Dahua Technology Company even though the US previously blacklisted Dahua because it was alleged to have helped China detain and monitor the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities.
The cameras work by comparing a person’s radiation with a separate infrared calibration device and uses face detection technology to make sure it is looking for heat in the right part of the subjects…