SIMON BEVILACQUA
HOW dare the Tasmanian Government secretly collect face-recognition data about Tasmanians. I already had concerns about the Hodgman Government’s secretive, non-consultative and authoritarian traits but to read that for 12 months it has been compiling a database that potentially links to mass surveillance of Tasmanians is the last straw.
What is this, Communist China? George Orwell’s infamous Oceania?
The Government has been collecting biometric data from Tasmanians who apply for or renew their driver’s licence.
University of Tasmania Associate Professor and Law Reform Institute of Tasmania director Terese Henning explained in a Talking Point article ( Mercury, November 6) that the Government collected photographs in anticipation of the enactment of the federal Identity-matching Services Bill 2018 and the Australian Passports Amendment (Identitymatching Services) Bill 2018.
These Bills, like something out of Hollywood about a futuristic police state, enable a central authority to cross reference data it has on each and every one of us so as to be able to pry deeper into our lives than was even imaginable 20 years ago.
Prof Henning explained that the Bills have been shelved due to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security recommending they be rewritten to protect privacy and to include safeguards, transparency and parliamentary oversight.
“This means the Tasmanian Government began collecting facial recognition data in the absence of the relevant legislative framework to do so and in the absence of recommended safeguards of privacy and personal security,” Prof Henning said. “It was done without our knowledge and without our consent. It was done without community consultation on the need for, or desirability of, its collection. We have not only not known this information is being collected, but also why or how it will be used. Clearly none of us has had the opportunity to opt out.”
Many governments are taking this authoritarian path as China’s technology sector is becoming a global leader in the export of mass surveillance. China is perfecting surveillance using artificial intelligence to compile data in seconds upon identification of a face — it could potentially link anything from bank accounts, colleagues and relatives, drivers’ licences, criminal records and political and personal views, which could be gained via analysis of online posts, emails, tweets and purchases. It’s all recorded, stored and up for abuse.
The latest Chinese AI can identify faces in low light and account for ageing. That’s why Hong Kongers fighting for democratic rights in recent months have worn surgical face masks. China’s Skynet program uses AI face recognition to track people on public cameras. It plans to have 400 million installed by next year. They are already used to shame jaywalkers by projecting offenders’ images and names on a public screen.
This data network is the basis of a Chinese social credit system being developed to rate the trustworthiness of a citizen with an index to show whether a person has been caught being disobedient by jaywalking or by doing whatever the Communist
Party decides is inappropriate.
The index will determine the privileges granted to a citizen and whether they are allowed to move freely at home and abroad.
Ask Tibetans, who have to apply for written permission before being screened at security checkpoints to travel between towns, or the one million Uyghur Muslims interred in re-education camps, how the Chinese Government controls people by restricting freedom of movement.
Journalist Angus Grigg exposed the reach of surveillance in China when in Beijing in 2014 to cover the National People’s Congress.
“In Tiananmen Square firefighters in orange overalls stood guard against self-immolations, armoured personnel carriers provided the security presence and plainclothes police were stationed at intervals of 100m along major roads. But the real work, as I discovered, was being done by the CCTV cameras,” he wrote last year in the Australian Financial Review.
As Grigg was leaving the Great Hall, a protester unfurled a banner.
“His one-man demonstration was over almost before it began,” Grigg wrote. “Previously unsighted security officers materialised in seconds, as did an unmarked van, into which the protester was bundled.
“No one spoke to me or even acknowledged my presence at the scene. But 90 minutes later, back at my hotel, the phone rang. It was the Public Security Bureau. They had ‘noted’ my presence at the bus stop and wanted to know if I planned to report on the protester and his treatment.”
Grigg had been identified by facerecognition technology, which alerted authorities to where he was staying and that he was a journalist.
The Hodgman Government says its data collection is designed to protect the identity of Tasmanians and the Morrison Government says identity-matching laws will protect us against fraud and terrorism.
That is how China justifies its surveillance too, the difference being that if you object too loudly in China, you are bundled off in a van — yet more proof we are better protected by our liberty than by Big Brother.