TOTT News

The federal government is considering allowing private companies to use its national facial recognition database for a fee, documents released under Freedom of Information laws have revealed.

The partially redacted documents released this week show that the Attorney General’s Department is in discussions with major telecommunications companies about pilot programs for private sector use of the new national facial recognition system in 2018.

A vision from Orwell’s dystopia – in Australia.

Australia’s leading privacy and civil liberties organisations have condemned the decision by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) to provide all images from state and territory driver’s licence databases to a national facial biometric capability system.

The organisations, including the Australian Privacy Foundation, Digital Rights Watch, Queensland Council for Civil Liberties, NSW Council for Civil Liberties, Liberty Victoria, South Australian Council for Civil Liberties and Electronic Frontiers Australia, have called the comprehensive facial recognition database ‘unnecessary’ and ‘fundamentally incompatible with a free and open society’.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has assured Australians that national facial biometric matching capability would “only bring existing arrangements into real time”, after the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreed to a suite of new ‘anti-terrorism’ measures yesterday.

As the mainstream establishment continues to dismiss privacy concerns of advocates across the country, Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman seemingly showed no reserve in support of the overhaul, declaring “we live in very uncertain times” and “this is the new world order”.

Public transport commuters in Queensland will be able ‘to use their faces as a ticket to board trains and buses’ in the near future, after it was announced on Thursday that trials will commence to replace the current ‘Go Card’ digital network with facial recognition technology.

Cubic Corporation, the company initially behind the ‘Go Card’, will trial the use of biometric identification technology to enable passengers to pay their fares in a ‘seamless, efficient way’, with card-operated gates to eventually be replaced by machines which scan an individual’s eyes or the unique pattern of veins in the palm of their hand.

Queensland’s Privacy Commissioner has raised concerned over plans to use facial recognition technology to identify suspected ‘terrorists’ during the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in 2018.

Biometric identification technology is set to be deployed on the Gold Coast public transport network early next year, including trains, trams and buses at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, to identify potential ‘terror suspects’ before they can interrupt the proceedings.

Parents in Victoria have raised concerns over new proposals by the government to change regulations surrounding home education in the state, including tougher measures on the process of approval and restrictions on the curriculum used by families at home.

The new changes, introduced early this year, will also introduce an increase in powers for government authorities to monitor and intervene in the education process, a move that has homeschooling advocates campaigning to shut the legislation down.

Australia’s Customs and Border Protection will install 92 facial recognition terminals in international airports as part of an $18 million deal to replace passports with a “contactless” biometric identification system.

The program will see all international passengers processed by biometric recognition of the face, iris or fingerprints, incoming paper passenger cards abolished, and manned stations replaced by electronic stations and automatic triage.

Children as young as five will have their fingerprints scanned at school as part of a new biometric student attendance record-keeping program.

Originally posted on Real News Australia:
In a shocking turn of events the Australian Government amends laws to now include young adults! By General Maddox.? Legislators have just done what many in the alternative media have been predicting would happen for some time. That’s right, children and now adult vaccinations in order to receive family…