Singapore has tested patrol robots that fire warnings at persons participating in “undesirable social behavior,” adding to an arsenal of monitoring technologies in the tightly controlled city-state that is fueling privacy worries, reports The Guardian.
Singapore is seeing an explosion of instruments to track its residents, from massive numbers of CCTV cameras to trials of lampposts equipped with facial recognition technology.
In September, two robots were sent to patrol a housing estate and a shopping mall as part of a three-week trial.
Smart Nation
Officials have long promoted a vision of a hyper-efficient, tech-driven “smart nation,” but critics claim that privacy is being compromised and that citizens have little control over their data.
Although Singapore is routinely chastised for restricting civil liberties, and residents have become accustomed to stringent regulations, there is nevertheless a growing fear of intrusive technology.
Provide public warnings and detect “undesirable social behavior”
This includes smoking in forbidden locations, parking bicycles improperly, and violating coronavirus social-distancing laws, among other things.
Robocop Concept
During a recent patrol, one of the “Xavier” robots weaved its way through a housing estate and came to a halt in front of a group of elderly inhabitants who were playing a chess game.
A robotic voice blared out, “Please keep one-meter distance, please keep to five persons per group,” as a camera on top of the machine trained its sight on them.
During the recent robot patrol trial, Frannie Teo, a 34-year-old research assistant, was wandering through the mall.
She remarked, “It reminds me of Robocop.”
It conjures up images of a “dystopian world of robots… She went on to say, “I’m just a little hesitant about that kind of concept.”
The Latest Technique
The devices, according to digital rights campaigner Lee Yi Ting, are the latest way Singaporeans are being observed.
“It all adds up to the notion that people in Singapore need to scrutinize what they say and do far more than they would in other countries,” she told Agence France-Presse.
However, the government defended its use of robots, claiming that they were not used to identify or prosecute offenders during the technology’s trial and that they were necessary to address a labor shortage as the population ages.
Robots to Manage Patrols
“The workforce is diminishing,” said Ong Ka Hing, a government official who worked on the Xavier robots, adding that they might help cut the number of cops needed for foot patrols.
The island’s population of around 5.5 million people has 90,000 police cameras, with that number expected to treble by 2030, and facial recognition technology – which helps authorities identify faces in crowds – could be installed on lampposts across the city.
Protection Law
This year, officials faced a rare public outcry after admitting that police had acquired coronavirus contract-tracing data collected by an official system. Later, the government enacted legislation to restrict its use.
However, critics claim that Singapore’s laws place minimal restrictions on government surveillance and that Singaporeans have little control over what happens to the information acquired.
“There are no protection law imperatives on what the public authority can or can’t do,” said Indulekshmi Rajeswari, a security legal counselor from Singapore who is presently situated in Germany.
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Source: The Guardian
