Digital Cameras

Text: Dear activists for the protection of privacy, dear people from all over the European Union, dear mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters. Since 2009, the EU has been subsidizing the INDECT project with millions of Euros. Even though several media outlets have already reported about this networked surveillance technology, only few EU citizens know what it is supposed to be. The application of INDECT aims to analyze conspicuous behavior to prevent crimes, in virtual life as well as in real life, before they actually happen. Not only does this sound crazy, it is cutting deeply into our basic right to privacy, because those cameras will be able to replicate scanned personal biometrical features with existing digital files about persons in databases such as social networks. Hence, every person could be retraced and supervised, anybody who says or does anything "abnormal" or anything which the system considers to be "threatening" both on the internet and in real life, is potentially suspicious. We have been accepting the claims of disclosure of our private data for too long in order to prevent acts of terrorism. People started to accept being treated as potential terrorists or criminals, being more and more deprived of their basic rights, and allowing the surveillance society to gain increased control over them. Basic rights weren't given to us as a matter of course, but many generations kept fighting for them. Don't let those rights be taken away ...