FRT Is the Cause And Proposed Solution to All of Last Week’s Problems and Police Robots
Whose Streets? Our Streets! (Tech Edition) Issue 8
Whose Streets? Our Streets! (Tech Edition) documents trends in the surveillance of public space. Curated by Rebecca Williams and Madeleine Smith as part of "smart city" surveillance research for the Technology and Public Purpose Project at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. Subscribe now so you don’t miss an issue and help us spread the word to folks who would enjoy this content.
City Watch
Dulles, VA, U.S. - “US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) used its Simplified Arrival system to apprehend a man trying to pass through US customs with his brother’s US passport.” [Find Biometrics]
Fort Worth, TX, U.S. - “Fort Worth Unveils New High-Tech Police Helicopter” [Yahoo News]
Malaysia - “It’s a facial recognition system that helps in nabbing criminals and getting evidence against those who break the law. But soon, the CamMuka service, developed by our own CyberSecurity Malaysia, will be available for use in civil cases too.” [Star Media Group]
Malaysia - “The Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT), in partnership with CONFEXHUB, is addressing the outlook for the smart city framework to understand the gaps that exist in the implementation.” [NST h/t @hunter_owens]
Maryland, U.S. - “A study by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, in partnership with the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) and INRIX, closely monitored the use of a welcome center on I-95 in Laurel between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Researchers, working with MDOT, geofenced the area where trucks are allowed to park. This showed when and where trucks were parking on areas like ramps and shoulders, which are considered off limits for safety reasons.” [Government Technology]
Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates - “RAK Transport Authority (RAKTA) has launched the experimental phase of smart monitoring and control systems in transportation, represented by smart surveillance cameras in buses and taxis, smart meters and a smart control centre.” [Gulf News see also ITP Net]
San Diego, CA, U.S. (Update) - “[Mayor Todd] Gloria told the Times of San Diego that Brady, who is Black, is one of the few women or people of color to be named to such a post [Chief Innovation Officer] in a major American city, and he tweeted that he was proud to give her the job...The city has been involved in a high-profile effort to roll out a huge network of smart streetlights.” [Government Technology]
Singapore (Update) - “Singapore successfully used technology to track and trace Covid-19 cases, but privacy advocates worry about the long-term consequence of surveillance.” [Rest of World]
Thiruvananthapuram, India - “The multi-level parking project of the city corporation under the Smart City Thiruvananthapuram Limited (SCTL) has been one of the most prominent projects of the corporation’s annual budget.“ [New Indian Express]
Washington, DC, U.S. - Video, cellphone, and facial recognition data may lead police to Capitol rioters. [Anchorage Daily News, see also EFF, Fast Company, The Intercept, WIRED’s call to not let this lead to more surveillance, misreporting that included mention of FRT, and old-fashioned detection campaigns.]
Various Global Cities - “The [U.S.] Army has built the largest facial recognition database of thermal images...The dataset has more than half-a-million images of 395 subjects.” [Fedscoop]
Various U.S. Cities - “At least 20 surveillance and military reconnaissance flights flew over protesters during Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020...Who decides when there are helicopters? Experts weigh in on National Guard monitoring protests.” [NBC News]
Various U.S. Cities - “Amazon will spend $2 billion to try to fix affordable housing crises in three major employment hubs. Focusing on housing around Seattle, Arlington, and Nashville.” [The Verge]
Market Watch
Consumer electronics -
“Smart Tech, Smart Sports: Taiwan’s Innovators to Unveil AIoT and Leisure Sports Breakthroughs at CES 2021” [Business Wire]
“15 innovative Seoul technology companies to exhibit at CES 2021” [Yahoo News]
Facial Recognition technology -
“The US Department of Homeland Security tested facial-recognition technology that it said can accurately identify masked airline passengers 96% of the time.” [Business Insider]
“Japanese biometrics firm NEC Corporation has launched a facial-recognition system specifically for identifying people wearing masks, which it claims is 99.9% accurate and takes less than one second for verification.” [Computer Weekly]
“Intel has officially launched RealSense ID, a facial recognition camera module that is built on its RealSense depth-sensing technology. Originally designed for touch-free interactions, Intel looks like it is going all-in on facial ID instead.” [Peta Pixel, see also The Verge]
Report: “Global Facial Recognition Technology Market - Strategic recommendations, Trends, Segmentation, Use case Analysis, Competitive Intelligence, Global and Regional Forecast (to 2026)” [Soccer Nurds]
Internet of Things - “Wi-Fi 6E devices are now being certified.” [The Verge]
Lasers - “TikTok debuts first augmented reality filter that uses iPhone 12 Pro’s LIDAR camera.” [The Verge]
Location Data -
(Update) “The sale of a prayer app's user data is just the latest example of ongoing government surveillance endured by Muslim communities.” [ACLU]
“Telegram feature exposes your precise address to hackers. Messenger maker has expressed no plans to fix location disclosure flaw.” [Ars Technica]
“Transaction and payment data, cookies, and location information are also all fair game to share with Facebook depending on the permissions you grant WhatsApp in the first place.” [WIRED]
Police robots - “Knightscope’s robots need cameras to navigate and traverse the terrain, but that’s not all their sensors are doing. According to the proposal that the police department of Huntington Park, California, sent to the mayor and city council, these robots are equipped with many infrared cameras capable of reading license plates. They also have wireless technology ‘capable of identifying smartphones within its range down to the MAC and IP addresses.’” [EFF]
Smart cities -
“Smart city camera solution Telicomm secures $1.3 million series A. The round, which was led by SIBF, will help develop its ‘Video over Cellular’ technology for smart cities.” [CALCALIST]
“COVID-19 expected to drive adoption of city digital twins” [Cities Today]
Report: Adroit Market Research published a Global Smart Cities Industry Market Report-Development Trends, Threats, Opportunities and Competitive Landscape in 2020 report. [Farming Sector]
Report: Orbis Research published a Public Safety Solution For Smart City market report. [Farming Sector]
Smart Grid -Report: “Smart Grid Market Demand, Recent Trends and Developments Analysis 2026” [Business News Update]
Smart Transportation - Report: "Smart Highway - Global Market Trajectory & Analytics" [Research and Markets]
Policy Watch
Ann Arbor, MI, U.S. - “Ann Arbor considering ban on police use of facial-recognition technology” [Michigan Live]
China - “Since derailing Ant's IPO, the Chinese government has shown that the enforcement wasn’t a one-off event. China’s antitrust watchdog fined Alibaba and a Tencent unit over a pair of years-old acquisitions and said it’s reviewing an impending merger that Tencent’s leading.” [Bloomberg Technology[
Oakland, CA, U.S. - “Oakland Privacy and the People of Vallejo Prevail in the Fight For Surveillance Accountability” [EFF]
Patterson, NJ, U.S. (Update) - “In Parks v. McCormack, et al., Case No. L-003672-20 (N.J.) the plaintiff alleges he spent ten days wrongfully imprisoned [after the police department relied solely on facial recognition technology to issue a warrant for the plaintiff’s arrest notwithstanding that the plaintiff’s fingerprints and DNA did not match those left at the scene of the crime, and that the plaintiff provided an alibi.] The lawsuit comes almost one year after New Jersey’s attorney general asked state prosecutors to stop using Clearview AI’s app and announced an ongoing investigation into it and similar facial recognition software.” [National Law Review]
Portland, OR, U.S. (Update) - An overview and tips for how “private entities” can comply with their ban from using facial recognition technology in any “places of public accommodation” within the boundaries of the City of Portland. [Biometric Update]
Illinois, U.S. - “Designing a BIPA Defense: Using Arbitration Agreements and Class Action Waivers to Limit BIPA Liability” [JD Supra]
U.S. Federal - “FTC settles with photo storage app that pivoted to facial recognition. The agency says Ever used customers’ images without their permission” [The Verge]
Various Global Cities - “AnyVision Offers 5 Indications for Fair, Ethical and Unbiased Use of Face Recognition Amidst Rising Public Debate…[after participating] in the ‘Facial Recognition: Challenges and Solutions’ conference hosted by Fordham University Law School last week.“ [BusinessWire]”
Various Global Cities - “The Government Wants to Scan Your Face When You Enter the US. It Hasn’t Gone Well So Far. A ransomware attack during a pilot program put travelers’ faces on the dark web.” [Mother Jones]
Various Global Cities - “For Marginalized Groups, Being Studied Can Be a Burden. Academics often research minority communities in the hope of helping them. But too much time under the microscope can cause its own harms.” [WIRED]
Wales, U.K. - “Last year, appeal court judges ruled a trial project to scan thousands of faces by South Wales Police was unlawful. The force did not appeal. Welsh company Credas said laws were not keeping up with the latest technology.” [BBC see also UK’s guidance for police on use of Live Facial Recognition]
Watching the Watchers Watch
Various U.S. Cities - “After the Capitol riot, Clearview AI, a facial-recognition app used by law enforcement, has seen a spike in use, said the company’s chief executive, Hoan Ton-That. ‘There was a 26 percent increase of searches over our usual weekday search volume,’ Mr. Ton-That said. There are ample online photos and videos of rioters, many unmasked, breaching the Capitol. The F.B.I. has posted the faces of dozens of them and has requested assistance identifying them. Local police departments around the country are answering their call.” [NY Times]
Bonus Section...Readings to Watch, um, Read
📕 Book: We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China's Surveillance State by Kai Strittmatter [NPR]
📄 Paper: Smart cities, big data and urban policy: Towards urban analytics for the long run by Jens Kandt and Michael Batty [Science Direct h/t @sashacuerda]
📰 Series: The 2019-2020 Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy series on the politics and governance of smart city technology. The series, by Toronto journalist and editor John Lorinc, will examine data and privacy, mobility applications, predictive policing, sustainable smart cities, data and planning and smart city megaprojects. It concludes with a discussion about how these systems can fit into accountable, progressive and democratic city-building efforts. [Toronto Star]