New upgrades for city surveillance systems.
Photo: AMU

More facial recognition coming to Melbourne.

CCTV UPGRADES

The City of Melbourne is looking to expand their smart city facial recognition capabilities to a whopping 280 cameras, as a means to “…detect signs of crime, uncleanliness and vandalism”.

Councillors voted earlier this month to prepare a report by June “on options regarding the use of video analytics”, which Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece said could range from facial identification to “…tracking offenders’ gait… or distinctive clothing items like a backpack”.

The council’s motion expanded the CCTV system’s remit from exclusively preventing crime to “enforcement issues”, like “stopping acts of public nuisance” and “damage to public or private property”.

The City of Melbourne recently handed down its 2025-26 draft budget, with an additional $4.5 million more invested into ‘public safety’ compared to last year, bringing the total to $14 million.

Listed ‘vision use cases’ were submitted to the Future Melbourne Committee that ranged from “tracking the licence plates of vehicles that dump rubbish”, to “detecting abandoned shopping trolleys and notifying supermarkets to remove them”.

The technology could also “identify irregular movements like running in a busy shopping precinct”, which could alert the authorities of a potential perpetrator or victim of crime.

Scary stuff, folks.

In 2019, we first reported when when facial recognition was activated across Melbourne’s CCTV network without notification to the public. This caused much controversy when initially rolled out.

Facial recognition activated without notification

At the time, a Victoria Police spokeswoman told reporters the force “…utilises facial recognition technology for investigative and intelligence-gathering purposes” across a network of 138 surveillance cameras.

That means this expansion will be an increase of 142 cameras since then, and a broadening of their use from ‘prevention’ to ‘enforcement’.

During an interview with reporters, Reece defended biometric identification by noting that “…more and more organisations are using this technology… pretty much any shopping centre in Australia.”

Andrew Bolt noted that the Australian Privacy Commissioner ruled that Bunning’s use of facial recognition was illegal, but Reece rejected that the finding had any bearing on Melbourne City Council.

“The commissioner decided that in that particular case, the benefits of Bunnings using facial recognition software on everyone entering its store did not outweigh the privacy implications,” he said in the interview.

However, the council’s own review would “…weigh up the privacy concerns and human rights dimensions…against the benefits to solving crime in its unique context”, Reece said.

What a joke.

The Victorian Government is currently working on an “AI Assurance Framework” for the public sector, which is likely to mandate guardrails and possibly audits of the use of emerging technology in high risk settings.

However, there are currently no laws or regulations “specifically governing the appropriate use of the technology”.

In fact, this type of technology has been allowed to run rampant for many years now, as laws and regulatory frameworks struggle to catch up to continued advancements and legal complexities.

The biometric dystopia continues to take over Australian society at unprecedented rates.

SMART CITY MELBOURNE

Endowing CCTV systems with ‘smart’ capabilities such as face, object, and gait recognition represents a quantum leap in surveillance power that needs to be handled carefully.

In recent years, there has been increasingly widespread and unannounced use of the technology in a range of venues of all kinds, from hotels and clubs, to sports arenas and retailers.

Pubs and clubs argue more facial recognition will help ‘protect public’

The city’s largest stadiums, like Melbourne Cricket Ground, AAMI and Melbourne Park, all scan entrants’ facial data. We reported on MCG’s rollout last year here on the website:

Footy fans now being scanned by AI before entering the MCG

But in defending the move, Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece pointed to Logan City Council in South Brisbane, which uses computer vision to detect the “posting of illegal signs” and “abandoned vehicles”.

However, the fact that the technology has already been put in place without public discussion is concerning, and this notion is being used to claim that its use is ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable’.

Facial recognition CCTV surveillance is directly linked to Australia’s ‘smart city’ agenda, which since 2019, has been introduced in some fashion in every major location across the country. Even in regional areas.

Australia is building ‘smart city’ infrastructure

In Victoria, the Melbourne as a Smart City project has already seen the establishment of open data platforms that have almost 100 unique data sets available for anyone to access and use.

Through an open data platform, you can view real time city data at any time.

Current programs of the ‘smart’ technologies include “emerging technology testbeds”, “open innovation competition” and “free public wi-fi systems”.

One of the most striking elements of Melbourne’s new city features is what they describe as a ‘pedestrian counting system’ to track anonymous numbers of individual movements.

Furthermore, the City of Melbourne has played an important role in collaborating with government agencies, telecommunications providers, local businesses, start-ups, researchers and industry partners, to ensure the rollout of 5G and IoT to the community. This was completed in 2020.

The city is has also installed a network of 50-sensor-equipped rubbish bins that report to garbage truck operators when they are at 70 percent capacity, and a ‘smart parking system’ to detecting occupancy status of parking spaces.

Victorian council begins connecting garbage trucks to 5G technology

If allowed to continue to expand, we may find ourselves soon in a surveillance state indistinguishable from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, or perhaps even worse. I spoke on this societal transformation in New Dawn #208.

The Age of Big Brother: Australia’s Biometric Shift | New Dawn

Melbourne, the prying eyes of the establishment are multiplying, as the government behemoth looks for further all-seeing control over your streets. Stand up before it is too late.