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Big Brother is watching you!
Millions of people are being monitored for social distancing as part of a government-backed project secretly rolled out across Britain, the Mail can reveal.
In what campaigners call a sign the country is heading to a âtruly dark placeâ, at least 363 cameras originally installed to monitor traffic flow have been switched â without public consultation â to snoop on pedestrians.
An investigation revealed that Vivacity Labs, the company behind the Artificial Intelligence camera technology, was awarded almost ÂŁ50,000 by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy [BEIS] in June to âimprove the collection of social distancing data.â
The brief from public body Innovate UK â funded by BEIS â said pedestrians in 16 cities would be monitored for how close they are to one another in public places to âhelp the Government plan the removal of lockdown measuresâ.
Vivacity refused to reveal where its cameras were, citing âcommercial confidentiality.â But the Mail can reveal they are monitoring social distancing across large swathes of the country, including Liverpool, Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Warwickshire, Manchester, Bournemouth, Peterborough and Westminster.
Vivacity â whose Cambridge-educated founders created the social distancing tech to âhelp inform [government] policy decisionsâ â also has a âconfidentialâ contract to provide the Department for Transport with monthly updates on adherence to social distancing from its cameras across Britain. In addition, the Behavioural Insights Team quango, part-funded by the Cabinet Office, cited Vivacity data in a report about reducing the two-meter rule to one meter.
Despite the widespread and potentially life-changing use of the data, pedestrians have remained unaware their movements are being tracked because neither the Government nor many of the councils who approved the installation of cameras consulted the public on their change of use.
In an interview last month, Mark Nicholson, one of Vivacityâs founders, said the technology could soon be expanded to carry out temperature checks âdepending on how far down the âBig Brotherâ route we want to goâ.+3
Former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said last night: âThis is the kind of stuff that China does.
âThe reason why you film cars is to stop road accidents and things like that. You donât film people going about their daily business so you can report on their comings and goings. Itâs becoming mad.
âWe are losing our inalienable freedoms. Covid is destroying the very nature of what it is to be in a democracy under the rule of law and protected freedoms. The authorities are now using devices [to monitor people] which were not intended for that purpose. The Government should have informed the public but they shouldnât be doing this in the first place.â
Edin Omanovic, of campaign group Privacy International, said: âIf we canât even walk in public without a tech company trying to profit from us or a government agency knowing about it weâre heading to a truly dark place.
âSensors weâre told are for monitoring traffic are later used to monitor social distancing, and surely no one is naive enough to think that itâll end there. You have to draw a line somewhere.
âThe fact that they secretly sought to repurpose the cameras shows a shocking disregard for transparency, local authorities, and the public.â
Vivacityâs patented âsensorsâ contain an artificially intelligent camera which can differentiate in real-time between modes of transport such as cars, bicycles, lorries and pedestrians. The sensors can be specifically installed or attached to existing CCTV cameras. The vast majority of video is deleted within seconds, though occasionally footage is viewed by the companyâs designers when testing improvements to software.
When the company improved the technology so it could analyse whether pedestrians were complying with the two-meter rule, Vivacity approached more than 30 councils it was working with, as well as the Government, to see if they would be interested in using the data.
The cameras are able to identify areas where people are walking less than two meters apart. The current method does not identify individuals so could not be used for enforcement.
Despite privacy fears, no councils contacted by the Mail conducted a public consultation on changing the use of the cameras. Under data protection legislation, they were not legally obliged to consult the public because Vivacityâs sensors are not classed as ârecording personal dataâ, with the majority of recordings deleted within seconds.
But Mark Gracey, an expert in the legislation, said: âThere may be a public expectation that there should be notification of the change in the purpose of the technology.â
A spokesman for the Information Commissionersâ Office said it was important for creators of monitoring or surveillance technology in âpublicly accessible placesâ to be âtransparent about how it is being usedâ.
Earlier this year, Vivacity was awarded a ÂŁ49,481 grant from Innovate UK, which invests in science and research in Britain, to monitor social distancing. Describing the six-month project, a brief said: âThe police are under significant pressure, with many of their ranks in isolation. Being able to target lockdown enforcement to areas where there is a higher number of social interactions (less than two metres) is important.â
The company said it would use the money to improve its analysis and âmeasure the duration of interactions â the longer people interact, the increased risk of infectionâ.
Concerns over the use of the Vivacity sensors emerged at a scrutiny committee of Kent County Council earlier this month when plans to install the cameras were discussed.
After the council was âadvisedâ that the technology could be used to monitor social distancing, Conservative councillor Rory Love said âserious questions should be askedâ.
âI am worried about âmission creepâ and how technology like this can come into our lives for one purpose and then change to another,â he told the Mail.
âIf we allow technology to start monitoring social distancing, whatâs next?
âAnd if these kind of sensors are to be used in cities, there ought to be public consultation and scrutiny about whether we allow it.â
The Department for Transport (DfT) refused to answer seven detailed questions over how it uses the data from Vivacity on social distancing. A spokesman for the Department for Business said Innovate UK was âfunding short-term projects that address and mitigate the health, social, economic, cultural and environmental impacts of the Covid-19 outbreakâ.
Is UK building a digital autoritarism like in China?
A Vivacity spokesman said the technology cannot differentiate between household groups and strangers, meaning it could not make a judgement on whether social distancing is being adhered to or be used as part of enforcement.
He said the technology can merely illustrate the changes in peopleâs behaviours before and after lockdown restrictions are put in place, adding: âOur data has only been used to inform the statistical view of overall measurement of social distancing.â
Co-founder Peter Mildon said he was âvery happy when I go to sleep at night that we are not creating Big Brotherâ. He added that he could not discuss the DfT contract because there was a âconfidentiality clauseâ.
Cambridgeshire County Council said it had agreed with Vivacity and the DfT to âuse sensory data from our cameras as part of the Covid-19 response, including monitoring traffic flow and social distancingâ.
Oxfordshire County Council said it had received reports on social distancing from Vivacity which could be used to âinform ourselves of pinch-point issuesâ, but they were not actively being monitored.
Authorities in Manchester and Liverpool said they were not consulted over the change in use of the sensors and had not seen any data from Vivacity.
Councillor Mike Greene, of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council, said it was âaware the sensors can approximate the distance between pedestrians and that Vivacity have been studying social distancing but not in a way that identifies individualsâ.
Warwickshire County Council said it did not carry out a public consultation because the change in use was âan urgent measure in response to the pandemicâ.
A Department for Transport source said the social distancing data was not being used to inform government decisions on coronavirus measures.
If we allow technology to start monitoring social distancing without any consent, whatâs next? I do believe many countries are secretly watching us⊠And this will soon come to light.
“We are losing our inalienable freedoms. ”
Those were lost the day they installed the cameras
Just how naĂŻve are you people ?
QWe think it is called ‘trying “V” on for size’., no?