Welp.
1984 is continuing to be a prophetic novel. London already has one of the densest CCTV coverages of any city in the world, but now the Brits are installing new Chinese cameras that take things to the next level:
With its imposing red brick houses, neat gardens and red postbox, Baskerville Road in the borough of Wandsworth is a classic example of family residences in the more affluent areas of London.
But something is amiss. Just outside a house on the corner, which happens to be the former home of World War I-era prime minister David Lloyd George, is a new piece of infrastructure that would seem more suited to the perimeter of a maximum security prison or a detention camp.
It is a disturbingly anthropomorphic CCTV camera, with two lenses that resemble eyes and two other indeterminate features that serve as the nose and mouth; and it hangs from a pole ringed with spikes to protect its hardware from would-be thieves or vandals.
Yep, London, once a symbol of liberalism and Western Civilization is now putting up facial recognition cameras to spy on its citizens in public, the exact same way Communist China does.
Indeed, two of these rather sinister-looking structures — which appear to double as street lamps — have been installed on Baskerville Road, where homes fetch up to £10 million.
A sign beneath them says that they are there ‘to prevent crime and promote public safety'.
Yeah, that's Orwellian language if I've ever heard it.
And this is just one example. It's not just two cameras in a high-class neighborhood.
For the strange white cameras are just two of millions which have quietly been installed throughout Britain in recent months.
MILLIONS!
Millions of Chinese facial recognition cameras have gone up throughout Britain!
Made by Dahua, a Chinese state-affiliated company, they are equipped with controversial facial recognition software — a means of monitoring and controlling populations much favoured by Beijing and other totalitarian regimes around the world.
There are other causes for concern: Dahua has a track record of severe cybersecurity vulnerabilities that have already led to mass hacks of its cameras, and the company itself admitted last year that there is ‘very high potential' for other such incidents.
The company has also been implicated in human rights abuses conducted by the Chinese government, with the facial recognition capabilities of its cameras used to pick out in crowds anyone with the distinctive features of a Uyghur Muslim — a persecuted ethnic minority in China — to alert police so the individuals can be rounded up.
This is a feature that Dahua calls, rather chillingly, ‘Real Time Uyghur Warnings'. Only last week, the extent of China's human rights atrocities against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang Province were laid bare in a UN report, which found that there was ‘credible evidence' of torture, possibly amounting to ‘crimes against humanity'.
Oh, no big deal.
Just the same tech China puts up to enforce their social credit system which also detects Uyghurs to throw in concentration camps is now coming to Great Britain.
Now your public behavior can be tracked and recorded for Britain's government.
This is evil. It's totalitarian.
And it's in Britain!
But as facial recognition becomes the norm — the Metropolitan Police is already trialling it on central London streets — this could change overnight.
In fact, these devices are just the latest additions to a growing system of increasingly intrusive snooping on the UK population which is emulating China's Big Brother approach, and being facilitated by it, too.
Britons largely assume that China — home to half of the world's 800 million CCTV cameras — is the ultimate surveillance state. But with more CCTV cameras per person in London than in Beijing, and with residents of the UK capital being the third most watched population in the world, some now fear the UK is on a fast-track to rival China.
And while not all of these cameras have facial recognition capabilities, many civil liberties campaigners fear it is only a matter of time before they are updated with them.
London is now MORE intrusive than Beijing!
These security cameras are dangerous tools.
Here's how the tech is being used in China:
Of course, we only have to look at mainland China for a glimpse of the future of unprecedented mass surveillance.
Facial recognition technology is enabled at farmers' markets, karaoke bars and even public lavatories in parks, where it is used to prevent users taking too much toilet paper. Someone playing music too loudly on a train, not clearing up after their dog, or arguing with their neighbours automatically creates data that could consequentially cost them the ability to book a train ticket or get a loan.
And in Xinjiang Province, where Uyghur Muslims are held in detainment camps, cameras made by state-controlled company Hikvision can detect the smallest changes in facial expressions, and even skin pores, creating instant data for police on those who appear to be looking ‘guilty'.
But with at least six million CCTV cameras in the UK — one for every 11 people — the UK now ranks alongside China in terms of its surveillance capacity.
Anyone else think we are moving in a very, very dangerous direction?
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