Governments around the world are now rapidly taking advantage of facial recognition surveillance cameras to control all sorts of crime, eerily moving towards a 1984-esque society. Knowing that you’re being monitored is always creepy, but especially so in a place like the Philippines that has a notoriously flawed justice system.
But it looks like that’s exactly where the country’s capital Manila is headed. The city’s local government announced on Wednesday, March 4 that over a hundred CCTVs capable of facial recognition are now being installed in public spaces, ABS-CBN News reported.
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The local government said that the cameras will be used to fight crime. Footage will be screened to spot wanted criminals. Once they zero in on a person, their profile will be pulled up and show their last violation, if any.
“As soon as something comes up, we will coordinate with the police immediately,” Rommel Allada of the Philippine’s Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (MDDRMO) said.
The new cameras are capable of night-vision, so faces and plate numbers will be seen “even in the darkest portion of the city” Manila City Mayor Isko Moreno claimed.
To test the devices, the city government had two people with fake criminal records visit the Tayuman LRT Station and pass by a camera. Footage from ABS-CBN shows that the men were immediately tagged as Suspect 1 and 2 on surveillance monitors. Those without criminal records are tagged as “unknown.”
“When criminals come to Manila, there is no way out. There is an eye in the sky,” Moreno warned.
In 2018, Manila ranked second amongst Philippine cities with the highest number of crimes, with 21,386 reported violations. While facial recognition technology could ideally help reduce crime rate, it can also be very dangerous under the wrong hands.
Privacy advocates have argued that there is still a high chance for error. Faces change as we age and with the help of make-up, cosmetic surgery, or even a crazy haircut, people may not be identified properly. It’s also problematic given the Philippines’ record of extra-judicial killings.
The Manila city government said it will coordinate with the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to make sure all their criminal records are up to date, but this has yet to be seen.
Privacy is also an issue. The city government said that video files will not be available to the public and will instead be turned over to the police for future investigations and the filing of cases. However, government departments aren’t exactly safe from data breaches. In 2019, the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ database was hacked, leaking information about its personnel.
Netizens are now openly criticising the addition of cameras around the city. On Twitter, user @janigmatic questioned this move amid the country’s newly amended Human Security Act.
While user @pmjamilla feared that installing the cameras would be a pretext for Orwellian mass surveillance and arbitrary arrests.
In 2019, the Philippines’ Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) launched a similar project financed by China, dubbed “Safe Philippines,” but it only covered the cities of Marikina, Parañaque, Pasig, San Juan, and Valenzuela.
Privacy advocates like Shari Datu Tambuyung, the compliance officer for privacy at the Ateneo De Manila University, criticised this system last year, saying, “Despite its growing popularity, facial recognition, just like any new technology, raises legitimate concerns.”
She believes that the downsides to facial recognition systems, such as data collection and facial errors, are rarely highlighted today and aren’t addressed effectively, insisting that the public must “demand greater control over their personal data, as collected by these systems, and actively defend their privacy rights and other individual freedoms at every possible opportunity.”
