Just when you thought it was impossible for surveillance to get any creepier, a company has announced it has created mannequins with cameras installed inside that can be used to spy on shoppers and record their conversations – and that they’ve already been rolled out at numerous fashion stores across the world.
The EyeSee mannequin, developed by Italian firm Almax, relies on technology used to identify criminals in airports that utilizes facial recognition software to identify the race, age and gender of the shopper and feeds that information back to a centralized database. The camera is embedded in the eye of the mannequin.
The company refused to divulge which retailers were using the mannequins, but acknowledged that they were already being used in three European countries and in the United States. CEO Max Catanese added that five major luxury fashion retailers had deployed “a few dozen” of the mannequins, with orders for many more.
The company is planning to update the technology inside the $5,000 dollar mannequins to enable them to listen in on shoppers’ conversations as they walk around the store.
The company is planning to update the technology inside the $5,000 dollar mannequins to enable them to listen in on shoppers’ conversations as they walk around the store.
“Keeping cameras hidden in a mannequin is nothing short of creepy. The use of covert surveillance technology by shops, in order to provide a personalised service, seems totally disproportionate,” said Emma Carr, deputy director of civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch.
“The fact that the cameras are hidden suggests that shops are fully aware that many customers would object to this kind of monitoring,” she added.
Lawyer Christopher Mesnooh also pointed out that since there is no warning that customers are being recorded, the mannequin spies could represent a violation of privacy laws.
“If you go on Facebook, before you start the registration process, you can see exactly what information they are going to collect and what they’re going to do with it,” Mesnooh told Bloomberg. “If you’re walking into a store, where’s the choice?”
What’s next? Is DARPA going to animate the mannequins and turn them into security guards that spring to life to apprehend shoplifters?
Shopping is becoming the front line of cutting edge invasive surveillance in a myriad of different ways, from RFID tags in clothing to airport-style naked body scanners that help shoppers decide if clothes fit – as well as firing radio waves at their skin that health experts have warned could damage human DNA.
Earlier this year, Redpepper, a company based in Nashville, TN, announced that it had created a Facebook app thatworked with facial recognition cameras to identify customers as they entered bars and shops and then delivered discount coupons to their mobile phone.
Although the company behind the spy dummies claims the technology is “blind” and will not be used to identify individuals, despite the fact that the same technology is already being used to identify individuals in airports, how far away are we from the kind of nightmare scenario depicted in the following scenes from Minority Report?
The National Security Agency has refused to release details of a secret presidential directive which experts believe could allow the military and intelligence agencies to operate on the networks of private companies, such as Google and Facebook.
As we reported last week, an article in theWashington Post, cited several US officials saying that Obama signed off on the secret cybersecurity order, believed to widely expand NSA’s spying authorities, in mid-October.
“The new directive is the most extensive White House effort to date to wrestle with what constitutes an “offensive” and a “defensive” action in the rapidly evolving world of cyberwar and cyberterrorism.” the report states.
In response to the move, lawyers with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request (PDF) demanding that the Obama administration make public the text of the directive.
The NSA responded to the FOIA request this week with a statement arguing that it does not have to release the document because it is a confidential presidential communication and it is classified.
“Disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.” the NSA response reads.
“Because the document is currently and properly classified, it is exempt from disclosure,” the statement notes.
Attorneys for EPIC say they plan to appeal and force the text of the secret directive to be publicly disclosed.
“We believe that the public hasn’t been able to involve themselves in the cybersecurity debate, and the reason they can’t involve themselves is because they don’t have the right amount of information,” EPIC attorney Amie Stepanovich said.
In an official statement to Congress earlier this year, EPIC explained that the NSA was a “black hole for public information about cybersecurity.”
As we have also noted, the latest secret directive appears to also legally enable the US military and the NSA to use newly created computer viruses to attack any organisation or country deemed to be a cyber threat. Obama has already shown the willingness to carry out such attacks, as new details surrounding the 2010 stuxnet attack revealed earlier this year.
And Leahy embarrassingly withdraws his own Email Surveillance Bill.....
Leahy scuttles his warrantless e-mail surveillance bill
After public criticism of proposal that lets government agencies warrantlessly access Americans' e-mail, Sen. Patrick Leahy says he will "not support" such an idea at next week's vote.
Sen. Patrick Leahy won't support warrantless e-mail access, although an aide said only broad exceptions were off the table.
(Credit: U.S. Senate)
Sen. Patrick Leahy has abandoned his controversial proposal that would grant government agencies more surveillance power -- including warrantless access to Americans' e-mail accounts -- than they possess under current law.
The Vermont Democrat said today on Twitter that he would "not support such an exception" for warrantless access. The remarks came a few hours after a CNET article was published this morning that disclosed the existence of the measure.
A vote on the proposal in the Senate Judiciary committee, which Leahy chairs, is scheduled for next Thursday. The amendments were due to be glued onto a substitute (PDF) to H.R. 2471, which the House of Representatives already has approved.
Leahy's about-face comes in response to a deluge of criticism today, including the American Civil Liberties Union saying that warrants should be required, and the conservative group FreedomWorks launching a petition to Congress -- with more than 2,300 messages sent so far -- titled: "Tell Congress: Stay Out of My Email!"
A spokesman for the senator did not respond to questions today from CNET asking for clarification of what Leahy would support next week. (We'll update this article if we receive a response.)
A Democratic aide to the Judiciary committee did, however, tell CNET this afternoon that Leahy does not support broad exceptions for warrantless searches of e-mail content.
A note from Leahy's Twitter account added: "Technology has created vacuum in privacy protection. Sen. Leahy believes that needs to be fixed, and #ECPA needs privacy updates." That's a reference to the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which currently does not require that police always obtain a warrant for the contents of e-mail and other communications.
This revised position will come as a relief to privacy advocates and business lobbyists, who have been scrambling since last week to figure out how to respond to Leahy's revamped legislation. Some portions would have imposed new restrictions on law enforcement, while others would lessen existing ones, making the overall bill unpalatable to many groups.
The Center for Democracy and Technology, which is coordinating an industry coalition pressing for surveillance reforms, said today that: "We wouldn't support the rewrite described in CNET." (Members of the coalition include Apple, Amazon.com, Americans for Tax Reform, AT&T, the Center for Democracy and Technology, eBay, Google, Facebook, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, TechFreedom, and Twitter.)
Leahy's proposal would have allowed over 22 agencies -- including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission -- to access Americans' e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would have given the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge.
That was an abrupt departure from Leahy's earlier approach, which required police to obtain a search warrant backed by probable cause before they could read the contents of e-mail or other communications. He boasted last year that his bill "provides enhanced privacy protections for American consumers by... requiring that the government obtain a search warrant."
One person participating in Capitol Hill meetings on this topic told CNET that Justice Department officials have expressed their displeasure about Leahy's original bill. The department is on record as opposing any such requirement: James Baker, the associate deputy attorney general, has publicly warned that requiring a warrant to obtain stored e-mail could have an "adverse impact" on criminal investigations.
Leahy, a former prosecutor, has a mixed record on privacy. He criticized the FBI's efforts to require Internet providers to build in backdoors for law enforcement access, and introduced a bill in the 1990s protecting Americans' right to use whatever encryption products they wanted.
Executives at DataFoundry, a provider of data center services in Austin, Tex., said the proposed changes were an unacceptable breach of Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
Ronald Yokubaitis, co-CEO of Data Foundry, said giving the government near-unchecked authority to search consumer information stored in the cloud would destroy confidence in cloud-based services and encourage more businesses to move overseas, where protections are greater.
"If this language comes in, we are opposed to the bill," Yokubaitis said. "It will kill cloud computing."
Several members of the coalition contacted by CNET today reiterated support for the September version of Leahy's amendment, which included a warrant provision. An Intel spokeswoman forwarded a letter in support of the earlier version of the legislation, adding: "Our position of support for the warrant requirement is unchanged."
Kim Hart, a spokeswoman for Neustar, also endorsed the September version of the measure.
"As a member of the Digital Due Process coalition, we supported Senator Leahy's original legislation," she said in an e-mail. "We have not yet had the opportunity fully to consider revisions to the legislation, though our experience has been that Senator Leahy addresses these difficult issues in a thoughtful and balanced way."
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