The article is about using Machine Learning on the video feeds, not that there are video feeds. And the issue at hand is that ML algorithms can have racial bias in the classifications.
Seems like a red herring. They want you to assume that mass violations of privacy are okay as long as they're not racist.
They're also ignoring classism - It's fine if the rights of the working class are violated, as long as they're all violated equally. Never-mind the people who can afford privacy on the free market.
When it comes to the police force surveillance, prejudicial bias is more a problem than a red herring. It's true that mass surveillance is an issue but how it is implemented can be an issue as well.
I'm curious - how does a wealthy person retain their privacy from this type of mass surveillance but the working class does not?
Transportation and shopping come to mind. If you do most of your shopping online you will be less exposed to this kind of mass surveillance; conversely, if you have to use public transportation and walk around, you'll be more exposed to it: not "retain their privacy", but "retain more of their privacy".
It's also possible that more affluent neighborhoods have fewer cameras.
'Accessibility, affordability, advertising, anonymity and anomie, are the five cylinders of the engine of mass addiction'
Um Another way to view... Let us take a quick look at a utopian idea: 'Does the government guarants me, that gains come without additional costs ?' (-;
The same way they do now to consume luxury goods and services and avoid papparazo and working folk. Blacked out SUVs and back entrances. You think Kylie Jenner has set foot on an LA sidewalk?
I think as long as your in public then it's fine to assume you're being recorded by CCTV. Obviously the government being able to access cameras in your own house like 1984 is not ok. But CCTV in public does reduce crime and help investigations. For example the Central line in London doesn't have CCTV (unlike most of the other lines) and it has the most assaults. https://www.newhamrecorder.co.uk/news/central-line-trains-ha...
I think wether you can trust your government to not misuse it (eg tracking minorities) is somewhat separate.
The idea that you should lose any form of privacy the moment you step outside your home is an extremely dangerous one. The reasons we value privacy do not suddenly cease to apply because you live a normal life.
Also, the evidence that CCTV is effective at deterring or solving crime is debatable. There is a plausible alternative theory that it simply moves the crime around. That is OK for you if you live and work in "nice" parts of town, but not so much if you are in the districts where the crime and antisocial behaviour get pushed to.
A +1 observation regarding the effectiveness of CCTV being debatable. I used to work in this field and the number of crystal clear views of hoodies and base-ball caps was remarkable. Cameras tend to be mounted up high to deter casual vandalism. As for number plate recognition systems - the ancient trick of stealing a set of number plates from a random vehicle is alive and well. As long as it doesn't ping anything as the car moves along it is effectively a ghost until the theft of the plate is reported. The only time I have heard of this back-firing is when there is a problem with the stolen number plate (e.g. No insurance, Intel markers etc).
Why bother stealing it? All that's going to do is attract attention and get your stolen plate flagged/revoked. Copying someone else's plate achieves the same goal without the unnecessary attention.
Even from a security point of view, that's only true if they actually use it effectively. From direct personal experience, this is not always the case: just because a camera is there, that doesn't necessarily mean anyone will bother to check it, even following the theft of a considerable sum of money.
I suppose in theory, if you blanketed the entire country with CCTV (just one town is no good, the crime can move to the next town over) then you might have a deterrent effect, but of course all the other concerns about mass surveillance would still apply.
Yes, but it won't happen. It is stupidly expensive and if you leave mild criminals nowhere to go they will destroy the CCTVs (happens a lot with speed cameras, and that's just normal angry drivers).
The Central Line is also the busiest (most trips, I can't find most passenger-km), so without knowing the number of assaults on the other lines, this is irrelevant.
I've lived in the U.S for over 20 years in multiple regions, I've lived in Denmark for over 20 years, and been around other parts of Europe reasonably much, and I have some experience about how racism works in Brazil.
While all these regions are prone to racism, the experiential reality of racism between two places is not the same, and this article's seeming assumption that the racism of the U.S is directly translatable to these different EU cities is ridiculous.
Of course if someone uses an algorithm trained on the racism of the U.S in Prague they might get something that anyone viewing the reports would find really weird, so that might be an amusing thing to try.
In short the issue at hand is an issue apparently dreamed up by people not realizing that their society's problems are not exactly universal.
Indeed. This is where the discussion should be. The topic of whether we should have cameras everywhere is one conversation. But this one is about how to handle the unintended side effects of ethnic bias based on data and the analysis.
You make an excellent point about an algorithm being trained in the US being used in Prague. They might not be applicable since Czech Republic since training an algorithm in what is a few steps up from an apartheid state will of course be doped with the racial biases of that country.