Insurance Corporation of British Columbia Developing Facial Recognition Software for 12 Year Olds !

www.cbc.ca...

After the recent Vancouver riots, ICBC has offered the use of their facial recognition software to the RCMP (Canadian Police) for use in identifying faces of rioters from photos and videos of the event. They claim that they can use the software to scan video and pictures taken during the riot and match it with photos that people have voluntarily had taken for ID purposes, from people as young as the age of TWELVE.

ICBC are a Canadian Corporation tasked with providing insurance for cars and other items (mostly cars) to the residents of British Columbia.

What is their need for facial recognition software of any kind? Why does an insurance company feel the need to develop software that is apparently better than the software being used by national security services such as CSIS or even the RCMP themselves?

I think this is a HUGE story, a massive invasion of civil liberties by a crown corporation, and is pretty much being ignored.

Living in Vancouver, i must say i was disheartened to see what happened on the night of the June 15th. The videos and pictures only capture so much of the insanity and ridiculous behavior. I watched the rest of the evening unfold from a balcony on Granville street, watching the riot police, tear gas, explosions, fire works, fist fights, and whatever else unfold. Old women were being harassed, people jumping off overpasses fleeing from an angry mob... I have since heard that many of the key instigators are from out of town, and had planned to to cause chaos no matter the outcome of the hockey game.

I am all for a riot, if the reasons and implications are good: like overthrowing a corrupt government *cough cough*, taking down the banking system, resisting a draft or something like that... but to destroy your own city because some grown men can't put a frozen piece of rubber into a net, is just beyond stupid...

In saying this, i hope those instigators are punished, because there is no reason for the city and its citizens to have to pay for this non sense. That being said, the measures mentioned in the above article are a massive invasion of privacy, and one should raise concern for the tactics used. This will have negative implications for society and will hurt civil and human rights.