AI surveillance
In plain wordsUsing AI to watch, identify, track or profile people on a scale no team of humans could manage, for example by scanning camera feeds or analyzing phone and online data.
The use of AI to automate the monitoring of people: facial recognitionfacial recognition, n.: Technology that identifies or checks who someone is by comparing a picture of their face with stored photos, used by phones, passport gates and police databases. and person re-identification across camera networks, automatic license-plate reading, voice and speaker identification, analysis of communications, location and online activity, and behavioral or risk profiling that flags individuals for attention. AI changes surveillance chiefly by removing the bottleneck of human attention: footage and records that once went unexamined can be searched, linked and analyzed continuously and cheaply. Uses range from targeted criminal investigation to city-wide 'safe city' systems, workplace and school monitoring, and the repression of minorities and dissidents. Responses include bans and moratoria on particular uses, the EU AI ActEU AI Act, prop. n.: The European Union's law on artificial intelligence, the first broad AI law anywhere: it bans some uses, sets strict checks for risky ones and puts duties on the makers of the biggest AI models.'s prohibitions and limits on remote biometric identificationremote biometric identification, n.: Using AI to recognize people at a distance — usually by matching faces in camera footage against a database — without their taking part. The EU strictly limits live police use of it in public places., emotion recognitionemotion recognition system, n.: AI that tries to work out how people feel or what they intend from their faces, voices or bodies. The EU bans it at work and in schools and tightly regulates it elsewhere. and social scoringsocial scoring, n.: Rating people on how they behave or what they are like, then using the score to treat them worse in unrelated parts of their lives — a practice the EU has banned for AI., and export controls on surveillance technology.
With AI surveillance, a city's existing cameras can be searched for every appearance of one face in an afternoon.
Origin
A descriptive compound in use since the 2010s, when deep learning made automated video and image analysis practical. Steven Feldstein's AI Global Surveillance Index (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2019) found at least 75 of 176 countries using AI for surveillance, with Chinese and US firms the leading suppliers.
Usage note
Related critiques include surveillance capitalismsurveillance capitalism, n.: A business model in which companies collect huge amounts of data about people's behavior and use it to predict and influence what they will do, mainly to sell advertising., which concerns commercial data extraction, and the chilling effect: people curb lawful activity, such as protest, when they believe they are being watched.
Related
- facial recognitionfacial recognition, n.: Technology that identifies or checks who someone is by comparing a picture of their face with stored photos, used by phones, passport gates and police databases.
- remote biometric identificationremote biometric identification, n.: Using AI to recognize people at a distance — usually by matching faces in camera footage against a database — without their taking part. The EU strictly limits live police use of it in public places.
- predictive policingpredictive policing, n.: Using computer programs to forecast where crimes are likely to happen, or who is likely to be involved, so that police can decide where to patrol or whom to watch.
- social scoringsocial scoring, n.: Rating people on how they behave or what they are like, then using the score to treat them worse in unrelated parts of their lives — a practice the EU has banned for AI.
- surveillance capitalismsurveillance capitalism, n.: A business model in which companies collect huge amounts of data about people's behavior and use it to predict and influence what they will do, mainly to sell advertising.
- emotion recognition systememotion recognition system, n.: AI that tries to work out how people feel or what they intend from their faces, voices or bodies. The EU bans it at work and in schools and tightly regulates it elsewhere.
- algorithmic managementalgorithmic management, n.: When software, rather than a human manager, assigns work, sets pay, tracks performance and even disciplines or fires workers, as in ride-hailing, delivery and warehouse jobs.
Sources
- Feldstein, S. (2019). The Global Expansion of AI Surveillance. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Mentioned in
AI ethicsAI ethics, n.: The study of what is right and wrong in how AI is built and used: who it may harm, who is responsible when it fails, and which values it should respect., facial recognitionfacial recognition, n.: Technology that identifies or checks who someone is by comparing a picture of their face with stored photos, used by phones, passport gates and police databases., privacyprivacy, n.: Your ability to control who knows what about you. AI raises new privacy questions because it learns from huge amounts of personal data and can infer things about people they never shared., algorithmic managementalgorithmic management, n.: When software, rather than a human manager, assigns work, sets pay, tracks performance and even disciplines or fires workers, as in ride-hailing, delivery and warehouse jobs., big databig data, n.: Data that piles up too fast, in too many forms or in too great a quantity for one ordinary computer to store and study, and the methods invented to cope with it., concentration of powerconcentration of power, n.: The worry that AI will put enormous economic, political or military power in the hands of a few companies, governments or individuals, beyond the reach of ordinary checks and balances., disinformationdisinformation, n.: Deliberate falsehoods or distortions dressed up as fact, for example from a government or campaign trying to sway an election or sow distrust., object trackingobject tracking, n.: Following objects from frame to frame in a video and keeping track of which is which, so a system knows that the car it sees now is the same car it saw a second ago., predictive policingpredictive policing, n.: Using computer programs to forecast where crimes are likely to happen, or who is likely to be involved, so that police can decide where to patrol or whom to watch., remote biometric identificationremote biometric identification, n.: Using AI to recognize people at a distance — usually by matching faces in camera footage against a database — without their taking part. The EU strictly limits live police use of it in public places., social scoringsocial scoring, n.: Rating people on how they behave or what they are like, then using the score to treat them worse in unrelated parts of their lives — a practice the EU has banned for AI., surveillance capitalismsurveillance capitalism, n.: A business model in which companies collect huge amounts of data about people's behavior and use it to predict and influence what they will do, mainly to sell advertising., Clearview AIClearview AI, prop. n.: A US company that collected billions of photos from the internet without permission to build a face-search tool for police, the best-known example of controversial facial recognition., emotion recognition systememotion recognition system, n.: AI that tries to work out how people feel or what they intend from their faces, voices or bodies. The EU bans it at work and in schools and tightly regulates it elsewhere.