Signal 3: The Trends of Various Surveillance Technologies
http://press.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/16/national-geographic-magazine-february-2018/
On February 2018, National Geographic released their cover story, titled The New Big Brother, which talks about the increasing new trend of mass surveillance. Their story is divided up in sections.
The first story talks about how it is used to watch and detect crime, from detecting pick pocketers from three soccer fields away in the middle of a fairground, to detecting shooters with an acoustic software and infrared scanners that can identify and verify gunshots, providing direct access to security officers.
The second story builds on that, talking about how scanning is used to detect faces. The face picture can be taken anywhere, on personal devices or CCTV cameras, which then can be used to create a face template through algorithms, with possible combinations from thermal and geometric data, that can be used in high-security facilities and even stores.
The third story talks about how it is used to take satellite pictures of the earth, and can be used vice versa, to take pictures of the sky and stars in darkness and track satellites floating over earth. Also, in this section, it points out how it was used in ethical use to track poachers hunting in the dark.
The fourth story talks about x-rays, especially when checking illegal or dangerous cargo, which today, can be used to create a 3-D model of what’s inside, as well as tell what material it is depending on its radiation and material density.
The fifth story tells how censors are used in detecting and predicting disasters, as well as atmosphere changes, especially for monitoring hurricanes, detecting forest fires, and guide farmers where and when they should seed their fields.
The last part, however, discusses the general ethical implications of these mass surveillance, which states that although it can be put to ethical use against poachers and burglars, but there is also a major privacy issue for most of the population as well.
However, I would like to add my opinion to this as well. The article discusses very much how the future is now and that this technology is very much advancing rapidly, and therefore better and better surveillance will therefore get more accurate results, but I do disagree with this somewhat. Despite the wide range of data we can receive from surveillance, as well as its clarity and transparency, we should also be concerned of how accurate or trustworthy the data we receive from the surveillance actually is, or what other factors we should take into consideration in the technology, say for example, facial recognition: It might work on the majority of the population and races, but who knows whether it would work for some very special cases, and what possible ways a person can still bypass it. For surveillance that can be used for ethics and to keep us safe, it is easy to criticize how it can infringe on our privacy, but we should also be concerned on how accurate or developed the censors and technology is.
