"A five-year research programme, called Project Indect, aims to develop computer programmes which act as 'agents' to monitor and process information from web sites, discussion forums, file servers, peer-to-peer networks and even individual computers.
Its main objectives include the 'automatic detection of threats and abnormal behaviour or violence'
Project Indect, which received nearly £10 million in funding from the European Union, involves the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and computer scientists at York University, in addition to colleagues in nine other European countries.
Shami Chakrabarti, the director of human rights group Liberty, described the introduction of such mass surveillance techniques as a 'sinister step' for any country, adding that it was 'positively chilling' on a European scale." ...more return to rampartproductions.com
"...58 percent of Americans said they would use biometrics to verify their identities, as long as the biometric data was secured. Around 38 percent said they would not use biometrics. 'We were not surprised to see this high number,' Unisys' Cohn says. 'Given that fraud and personal data [security] is such a concern, it makes sense that people would figure out the best way to protect it.'
Around 93 percent said they would prefer fingerprint scans as a way to authenticate access to their data with banks, government agencies, and other organizations -- an increase of 20 percent over responses a year ago. Iris scanning was popular,as well, with 79 percent of the respondents saying they were willing to use it for authentication. And 62 percent said they would use biometrics based on scanning the blood vessels in their hands.
Nearly 90 percent would use passwords; 88 percent, PINs; 82 percent, photographs; 74 percent, face scans; and 69 percent, voice recording.
'We were surprised to see some of the biometrics numbers for things like eye scanning and blood vessel-scanning,' Cohn says. 'We didn't expect American consumers to aware of those [yet],' he says." ...more return to rampartproductions.com
"A surveillance state, with cameras on every street is commonplace but now Big Business is also turning to Big Brother.
Face recognition, behaviour analysing surveillance cameras, biometric profiling and the monitoring and storing of our shopping patterns has made snooping into our habits, movements and private lives ever easier.
Dismayed at its shrinking power to market to us via traditional media or even the internet, the private sector is now proposing to reach potential customers in ways that critics say should have us all concerned.
'There is an enormous pent-up demand for personalised location advertising, whether it is on your cellphone or PDA, on your radio in your car, or on the billboards you walk by on the streets and inside stores,' says Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer of BT.
'This is yet another technological intrusion into privacy. And like all such intrusions, it will be taken as far as the owner of that intrusion finds it profitable.'
Emotional reactions
New surveillance technology could even evaporate the advertiser's favourite grouse that 'half of advertising is wasted, but we don't know which half'.
Advertisers are turning to 'intelligent' digital billboards that use cameras to watch you watching the ads.
In Germany, developers have placed video cameras into street advertisements attempting to discern people's emotional reactions to the ads, according to the Washington-based privacy advocate outfit the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).
It warns that this type of surveillance encroaches on civil liberties. Such face, voice and behaviour technology could be a means of tracking individuals on a mass level across their entire lives, it says.
Pushed by the demands of advertisers and security-minded governments, these technologies are becoming so increasingly smart and intrusive that they now resemble something out of science fiction, it warns. ...more return to rampartproductions.com
BNET: "Novartis and Proteus Biomedical are not the only companies hoping to implant microchips into patients so that their pill-popping habits can be monitored. VeriChip of Delray Beach, Fl., has an even bolder idea: an implanted chip that links to an online database containing all your medical records, credit history and your social security ID.
As this presentation to investors makes clear, the chip and its database could form the basis of a new national identity database lined to Social Security and NationalCreditReport.com. The VeriMed Health Link homepage describes the chip:
… a tiny, passive microchip (the nation’s first and only microchip cleared for patient identification by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration) and a secure, private online database that links you to your personal health record. Your Health Link is always with you and cannot be lost or stolen.
That database can be accessed by doctors and nurses:
About the size of a grain of rice, the microchip is inserted just under the skin and contains only a unique, 16-digit identifier. The microchip itself does not contain any other data other than this unique electronic ID, nor does it contain any Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking capabilities. And unlike conventional forms of identification, the Health Link cannot be lost, stolen, misplaced, or counterfeited. It is safe, secure, reversible, and always with you....More
But VeriChip’s ambitions don’t end there, as this diagram indicates:"
Yes, it shows your Health Link chip linked to Google, Microsoft, employers and insurers. The company also sees the VeriMed Health Link linked to your “identity security services,” through a separate VeriChip product, PositiveID. This slide show states:
PositiveID puts people in control of their personal health records and financial information, bridging the gap between secure medical records and identity security
PositiveID dovetails with Health Link:
Cross marketing opportunities: cross-sell the NationalCreditReport.com customer base the Health Link personal health record and vice-versa
Differentiates PositiveID as the only personal health record that offers identity theft protection
It’s a future in which your doctor tags you like a dog with a microchip that allows anyone with the right privileges to look at your medical records, credit history, social security number (see slide 6), and anything else that stems from that.
Suddenly, storing medical records on paper in locked cabinets inside a single doctor’s office starts to look like something we may not want to rush to give up. ...source
