The European Union is spending tens of millions of euros on an artificial intelligence system known as “Project Indect,” which would draw from multiple data sources, namely public surveillance cameras, in order to detect “threats” and recognize “abnormal behavior” across the whole continent.

According to the project’s Web site, once completed, Project Indect would even be able to track vehicles as a type of support network for EU police officers.

Perhaps more chilling, the project promises “continuous monitoring” of “web sites, discussion forums, usenet groups, file servers, p2p networks [and] individual computer systems”.

Indect, research for which began in 2009, was the subject of a Sunday morning Telegraph report that has attracted significant attention on the Internet, but none from mainstream media.