Dutch IT Contractor Suggests Letting Police Have Direct Real-Time Access To All Of Your Devices... For Your Safety
from the Big-Brother-is-my-co-pilot dept
The premise seems like something right out a Phillip K. Dick novel (or a Doctorow) but the actual deployment is cheerily animated, as if it were selling something as innocuous as breakfast cereal or vehicle insurance. Dutch IT company PinkRoccade envisions a future where all of your everything can be accessed by local law enforcement… for safety!
Here's the not-actually-a-promo (more on that in a moment) video, helpfully subtitled by the nameless Techdirt reader who submitted the story.
The proposal is simple: all portable and wearable electronics can be given completely accessed (opt-in, apparently) by local law enforcement. The cheery figure who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (an "unsafe area") is rescued from a certain mugging by local officers, and all he had to give up was biometric data and access to all of his devices.
Heart rate data and perspiration sensors send a distress signal. The local police note that the "distress signal" emanates from an area with a higher-than-normal crime rate. The police access the citizen's glasses (of the Google variety, presumably) and see what he sees: two approaching figures possibly harboring malicious intent. Police scan GPS signals to see if phones in the area belong to known criminals. The nearest cop car is scrambled to the scene and the citizen who is the police's eyes, ears and sweat glands Makes It Home Alive.
The reaction in the Netherlands has been fierce. Here's the headline of one response, automatically translated:
Holy fuck video: PinkRoccade fucks the privacy.Even in the untranslated version, one can pick up various iterations of WTF scattered through the native Dutch. The author of this post points out how this supposed public safety tool could be abused, or just applied badly with horrific results.
"The GPS in your smart glasses indicates that you are next to an elementary school and the implanted chip in your testicle gives a slight state of excitement… [t]he vice squad is now underway."Another Dutch news outlet decided to ask PinkRoccade whether this video was actually, you know, REAL, rather than the misguided attempt at satire it really should be? The answer it received only makes it worse.
Roughly translated, PinkRoccade said that even though the video had been posted to YouTube by the company, it was meant for company personnel and law enforcement only. The general gist of the response is that the public is too stupid to understand this tech proposal and is only mocking it because it's viewing the video without the proper expertise or context.
The company says that all data sharing is purely voluntary, but doesn't address what happens when someone rescinds their permission. How can anyone be assured that the Big Brother they invited into their wearables will actually pack up and leave when asked to? Beyond that, there's the thousands of implications of allowing law enforcement to surveill and respond as it sees fit based on unreliable input like heart rates and perspiration.
It doesn't surprise me that an IT contractor would promo such a product and sadly even less surprising that it would generate interested responses from law enforcement agencies, who have often approached safety (both officer and public) as an area where no rules should apply. But neither of these entities should ever consider following through, even with consent. The potential for abuse and a long list of unintended consequences should warn anyone away. But PinkRoccade deserves most of the blame: for dreaming up this genocidal attack on privacy and for brushing off criticism by telling the public it's simply not smart enough to understand what it's proposing.
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Filed Under: devices, information, law enforcement, privacy, real time access, surveillance
Companies: pinkroccade
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Those open-sourced smartphones (that use both open source software and hardware) are getting more and more attractive...
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Sign me up
Sounds idyllic to me. I'm having copies of my house, car and safe deposit box keys made, and driving them downtown to Sergeant Phil at the local PD -- and then, here comes carefree living!
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Actually I like the idea
First person views of shooting/tasering events.
Chips implanted in uniforms and/or privates to alert to possible sexual assaults about to begin.
GPS location of traffic stops and integrated video of first person and dash cam so the head office can watch to make sure the cops behave.
This has the potential to cut abuse by police officers in at least 50%, maybe even more.
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Re: Actually I like the idea
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ll ransack (err, I mean diligently search) your home for all banking and other financial credentials, so that we can helpfully monitor them for you (and withdraw any funds to cover costs of the above, saving you that troublesome little burden).
There, that will give you all the benefits of the as yet unavailable technology without having to wait. Because we love you and you're "special", at least in one sense.
Have a nice day - I know we will (big smiley)
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Damn, I was thinking the same exact thing.
What is interesting is with Elysium, they had satellite tracking of John Carlyle, was able to see him from multiple angles via satellite. Had remote controlled, or at least remote managed robots along with hovering and quickly moving spy drones with defensive and offensive weaponry, and yet they still let him die even though he had the source code to reboot Elysium stuck in his head (wouldn't want that to get compromised by just anyone.) Those guys were there for quite some time, fighting with his robots, and long enough that the villain could be notified and picked up, yet the robot police cavalry never showed up. (Sure, the movie had a lot of holes, but I still loved it.)
Wonder if we could expect the same from this technology? "We would save you, but gosh darn, there are people far more wealthy than you that need saving. Please report to the police station once you are safe as we need to talk to you about some of the stuff you've been doing lately."
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So many ways...
If they don't see the attack coming... no heart rate to raise alarm until its too late. ~Ninja!
Police are nothing more than after the fact responders. You want protection? Then you provide it for yourself!
~Just a Ninja!
Kain was the first ninja... Able didn't see that one coming!
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2) Loss of contact signals an emergency situation, and they rush in anyway.
3) The human race stops breeding and goes extinct.
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This awesome fucker just won this week's funniest comment on TechDirt.
Also..."Holy fuck! [insert government official/organization/etc] fucks the privacy." is going to be my new saying.
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I'm not convinced he actually noticed the criminals because if he had, he probably would have gotten on the bicycle and ridden it away.
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That other scenario...
Your gps says you are not in your own neighbourhood.
The image from your google glass is dark, with an occasional flash of light. There is a woman in the picture...
Since you are not at home, but at the nightclub with that dark-haired beauty, let us rob your place clean. No witnesses, no mess.
Hey, you didn't think this data access would remain exclusive to the police, did you?
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Re: That other scenario...
The police (or this guy) really are thinking of the advantages here!
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First Red Flag
>The company says that all data sharing is purely voluntary, but doesn't address what happens when someone rescinds their permission.
Second Red Flag
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They just want to 'keep you safe', but wouldn't you know it, those pesky 'right' and 'privacy' things keep getting in the way, and so, for your protection of course, it's better to just get rid of those hindrances...
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Permission Denied?
Let me sum it up using an actual law enforcement officer's quote:
"If you're exercising your rights, you must be doing something wrong."
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That way instead of dispatching police, they just turn on the explosive warning signal to the muggers remotely.
Think of the cost savings! Only peadophile supporters would be against this.
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Of course..
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Re: Of course..
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Orwell was right
What could go wrong?
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Orwell was wrong
A better vision (pun intended) would be mandatory Google Glass with always on vision and microphone -- remotely monitored for your safety.
As a bonus feature for your enjoyment, whenever you see or hear anything copyrighted, your credit card can be automatically billed. Now that is unparalleled convenience!
What will they think of next?
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Re: Orwell was wrong
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Re: Orwell was wrong
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me@me.net
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You give permission for the use of the video-feed. The council would share all info in real time with the police, the department of the interior, the justice department, presumably the AIVD (national security agency) and anyone else deemed official enough by them. (Recursively, off course: I cannot see the NSA kept out.)
So both mandatory access and opt-in access. And off course widespread sharing of data with all the safety problems that entails.
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No one has pointed this out yet?
This is how it would be used in the US (and everywhere else, just give it time).
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Re: No one has pointed this out yet?
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"He's not allowing us unfettered access to his whole life! He's hiding something. Arrest him and we'll come up with an excuse after."
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After all, a good citizen trusts the police, a good citizen has nothing to 'hide' from them, and the system is designed to protect people, so clearly anyone who refused to agree to being monitored is up to no good and needs extra 'observation' to compensate.
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"These illegal, Fourth Amendment-breaking backdoors (supposedly for police use) will be commandeered by cyberterrorists who will use them for cyberattacks! We need to stop opening cybervulnerabilities for cyberterrorists to exploit before they bring about Cyber Pearl Harbor!"
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If Cyber Terrorism, is defined as scaring the bejeezums out of folks, through clandestine theft and willful misuse of their private data by tapping into their (cyber)communications devices, then we really need look no further than our own government and its various agencies and affiliates such as Law Enforcement.
Who needs foreign terrorists when we have the Human Rights ignoring and Constitution violating USG, right here at home.
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You want to play this actually for the safety of citizens? You do the same after someone has pushed the panic button in their wearable device that then sends a full data 911 call to the fuzz.
They would probably complain about that, though.
They like spying on people, but not so much actually taking intentional calls initiated by citizens.
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Hm... 2020?
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/s
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Bad Guys in White Hats, everywhere!
Sounds like the deal was going to be another top secret surveillance technique sold to the public as a secure safety system, with only the important parts - like total privacy forfeiture - left out of the publicly known details.
Whenever "the public is too stupid to understand the proposal", it usually just means that the public was not going to be privy to those specific details, because they would see only the privacy violation aspect of it all and complain.
The police on the other hand would understand those particular aspects completely and consider the public privacy violations as the best part of the proposal.
Yep. I believe him completely when he says the video was not intended for public consumption. Not ever.
Funny thing how, in a fascist run society, secret public privacy violation becomes just another big business model.
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The Future
As soon as remote devises that can measure heart rate and perspiration and such, simply by pointing them at a suspect are possible, we can assume that Law Enforcement will fall all over itself in its rush to incorporate them into its arsenal of citizen surveillance tools and techniques, because then no public endorsement will be needed or considered.
Shortly thereafter, similar static devices will be mounted in appropriate positions in all government and corporate buildings. Added to facial recognition, voice recognition and DNA analysis systems, the LEOs will begin to feel omnipotent in their ability to enforce the law.
Catch bad guys... not so much...
By then, "the law" will be fully rewritten by the bad guys in white hats, to protect only the bad guys in white hats, leaving John Q. Public to take the rap for all future crimes.
Fascist Dream number 32002.
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Re: The Future
On the positive side, the history of mankind indicates clearly that once someone begins to feel omnipotent they are in great danger of being thrown out of their power position.
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Re: Re: The Future
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