Smart City/ Safe City: Welcome to Surveillance Society! When I first heard of the 100 smart cities plan during the 2014 election campaign, I dismissed it as yet another poll gimmick, one among the dozens of catchy slogans used in the blitzkrieg style media campaign. Yesterday, I stumbled upon this blog. The details are chilling! Beyond being Orwellian or Kafkaesque. The project is being already implemented in Surat (Gujarat); apparently a pilot project in Ahmedabad in 2011 has helped tweak the details. The total project dubbed the Surat Safe City Project (SSCP) will consist of 5 phases in all, and when fully functional will involve a network of over 5,000 surveillance cameras at 500 different locations covering a total area of 150 square kilometres Welcome to India as a surveillance society! Snowden revelations spoke about how every single email and phonecall is being recorded and stored, for later analysis and data mining. There were earlier reports about total video surveillance in Manhattan, where, it is apparently difficult to stroll on any street, without being recorded. Many of us had dismissed this as paranoia, but nonetheless an understandable reaction to the 911 attack. Were now gearing up for 100 smart/ safe cities! The implications are chilling and sinister. We already have a network of intelligence and investigative agencies that routinely concoct cases and carry out hatchet jobs for their political masters. The higher judiciary has on record reprimanded these agencies, often throwing out cases that touted conspiracies, overturning verdicts from the lower courts. Our privacy laws are weak, practically non-existent. The States disregard for our fundamental rights and other legal rights is beyond being cynical. There is no robust mechanism for oversight - parliamentary or judicial. Imagine this surveillance data in the hands of the local sub-inspectors and SHOs! Or in the hands of an unsavoury politician. Read this blog, and browse the links in the first few comments. I already yearn for the 1980s, the pre-internet/ cellphone era... ibnlive.in/blogs/sauravjha/2976/65318/safe-city-concept-lays-the-groundwork-for-modis-smart-cities.html
Posted on: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 04:50:26 +0000
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