“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.”
—George Orwell’s 1984, a dystopian fiction of the future, complete with Two Minutes of Hate each day and condemnation of any counter-revolutionary activities. This final book of Orwell is fast becoming frighteningly real today in some jurisdictions.
LET’S start with China. Private information is required for routine transactions there. Tragedies have ensued with telecom fraud increasing by 36.4 percent between 2015 and 2016 alone; a teenager died in 2016 after a heart attack when her university tuition was stolen and a college professor lost CNY17 million. The government responded to all this by publishing several laws to protect private information, giving users the ability to agree to the purpose, method and scope. Supervision and security requirements are now in place for the telecom, healthcare and education industries.
However, the government has also efficiently used technology to its own advantage, leaping ahead of the game in the areas of artificial intelligence and facial recognition. China has been in the lead when it comes to the rollout of facial recognition technology from transport hubs to schools, shopping centres and residential complexes. Studies done by the Nandu Personal Information Protection Centre, Beijing, have revealed that 74 percent of the responders were concerned about this and prefer traditional forms of ID over facial recognition. The chief worry is that the operators will be lax with the data. There is also a worry that their movements are being tracked by unknown watchers.
Denne historien er fra February 10, 2020-utgaven av India Legal.
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Denne historien er fra February 10, 2020-utgaven av India Legal.
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