The news that Sky City intends to install facial recognition cameras in its casino, supposedly as part of its Covid -19 contact tracing obligation and that the Police have been secretly trialling facial recognition system, without consultation with the Privacy Commissioner should serve as a wake-up call for New Zealand.

The public needs to be properly informed about the issues. More importantly an informed decision needs to be made as to the type of society we want to live in.

There are significant issues at stake here. Advanced facial recognition technology is installed in many CCTV type cameras.  Utilising sophisticated artificial intelligence, people can be identified, and individual profiles maintained.  This has two main purposes.  The first is for crime prevention and to apprehend criminals. The second is to monitor people.  

Most people understand, albeit rather vaguely, about know how sophisticated this technology has become but less so about how intrusive it can be. Nevertheless, surveillance creep is happening before our eyes. Around the world, camera surveillance is increasing exponentially. 

Take the US for example. Millions of cameras have been installed by home and store owners. Police departments are also widely using this technology. Offline surveillance by governments has also grown exponentially in the past few years.  It is estimated that the number of security cameras in the US increased from about 33 million in 2012 to 62 million in 2016. 

In China the Sharp Eyes programme uses about 200 million surveillance cameras to surveil the population – one camera for every seven people.  It is estimated that by 2020, there will be 626 million CCTV cameras – one public camera for every two people!

Is this what we want in New Zealand?