TOTT News

China has been developing what some are describing as a chilling digital dictatorship, with a new national system that monitors all citizens on a 24/7 basis and ranks them on their behaviour set to be fully operational by 2020.

Underpinning the new system is the latest advancements in facial recognition and biometric technology, a national model that some argue mirrors new programs currently being introduced in Australia under the guise of ‘safety and security’.

Could Australia be incrementally setting up a blueprint for a similar system here in the future?

The world is changing at an unprecedented rate. Advancements in technological capabilities and systems have developed to a point where most of the modern world has become highly dependent on digital governing systems for sustainability and functions.

In the following membership piece, we take a look at the rise of a new age technological dystopia, including the history and development of biometrics and biometric technology, monitoring characteristics, the modern digital era in Australia and the rise of China’s ‘Social Credit System’.

From smart meters to smart phones, the world has seen increased development of new technologies over the last decade, allowing companies the ability to slowly become major actors in the world of law enforcement and national security.

As the world enters what technology experts are calling the “fourth industrial revolution”, we explore growing evidence suggesting that smart home technology was designed to be a surveillance intermediary for police and intelligence organisations.

In the aftermath of one of the biggest digital collapses in Australian history, the Turnbull government’s response to the Census fail has left more questions than it has answers, as officials continue to flip-flop over vague technical explanations and even contradict themselves on whether the DDOS attack it announced this morning was even an attack.

In the following opinion piece, Ethan Nash takes a look at some of the companies and departments behind the 2016 Census and gives a brief history of government behaviour with the privacy of Australian citizens.

For more than 100 years, the Census has “provided a snapshot of Australia, showing how our nation has changed over time and allowing us to plan for the future.”

However, as Australians prepare to partake in the latest Census tomorrow, there has been some concerning new changes to the process that has outraged citizens and privacy advocates, as Ethan Nash explains.

The telephone and internet data of every Australian will be retained for up to two years and intelligence agencies would be given increased access to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, under a suite of new proposals from Australia’s intelligence community. Revealed in a discussion paper released by the Attorney-General’s Department, the more […]

Australia’s leading counter-terrorism agency has been providing intelligence to the federal government on environmental groups that campaign against coal mining. The Australia Security Intelligence Organisation’s politically sensitive monitoring of the campaigners comes after Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson warned that protests at power stations and coal export terminals could have ”life-threatening” consequences and ”major […]