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"The problem extends beyond the Pegasus project. Installed in Mexico City is one of the largest urban surveillance systems in the Americas: El Centro de Comando, Control, Cómputo, Comunicaciones y Contacto Ciudadano, better known as El C5. The network, connected to panic buttons and command centers, is spread over 1,485 kilometers with software designed to automatically detect license plates. On top of that, the number of installed cameras grew from 18 million to 65 million between 2018 and 2022, with stated plans to add at least an additional 16 million more. Despite its apparent pre-eminence, issues have arisen with the C5, from false identifications to mishandling of personal data. Technological malfunctions have also been shown to impact the outcomes of criminal cases because of the assumption of objectivity that video surveillance supposedly construes. The sprawling C5 system is dwarfed only by the Titan, an expansive intelligence and security database, both in terms of scale and threat to civil liberties. The software is used by several Mexican state governments to combine location data with other private information, including financial, government, and telecom data, to geolocate individuals across the country in real time. Governmental officials have been criticized for the controversial use of the database to target public figures, but, more problematically, access to Titan-enabled intel can be gained through an underground market, making it a further liability. The extent to which artificial intelligence has been incorporated into the C5 and Titan is still not clear, but the specter of surveillance remains large and is set to cause more worries with the addition of new smart technologies."

"There it is. If you run a business, and the FBI or NSA want to turn it into a mass surveillance tool, they believe they can do so, solely on their own initiative. They can force you to modify your system. They can do it all in secret and then force your business to keep that secret. Once they do that, you no longer control that part of your business. You can't shut it down. You can't terminate part of your service. In a very real sense, it is not your business anymore. It is an arm of the vast U.S. surveillance apparatus, and if your interest conflicts with theirs then they win. Your business has been commandeered."

"But an analysis of the app's code found that it does more than decide in real time whether someone poses a contagion risk; it also shares information with the police, setting "a template for new forms of automated social control that could persist long after the epidemic subsides"."

"Others are more emphatic about the future. Wang Aizhong, an activist based in Guangzhou, said: "This epidemic undoubtedly provides more reason for the government to surveil the public. I don't think authorities will rule out keeping this up after the outbreak.""

"Interest in so-called dazzle camouflage appears to have grown substantially since the Metropolitan police announced last week that officers will be using live facial recognition cameras on London's streets - a move described by privacy campaigners and political activists as "dangerous", "oppressive" and "a huge threat to human rights"."

"Across the technology industry, rank-and-file employees are demanding greater insight into how their companies are deploying the technology that they build. At Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Salesforce, as well as at tech startups, engineers and technologists are increasingly asking whether the products they are working on are being used for surveillance in places like China or for military projects in the United States or elsewhere."

"As more governments turn to contact tracing apps to aid in their efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak, cybersecurity experts are warning this may spark renewed interest in Bluetooth attacks. They urge developers to ensure such apps are regularly tested for vulnerabilities and release patches swiftly to plug potential holes, while governments should provide assurance that their databases are secure and the data collected will not be used for purposes other than as originally intended. "

"And you thought Alexa spying on your dinner conversations was creepy? Everything is listening. Let me illustrate with a few examples."

"According to these internal documents, SIAM is a computer system that works behind the scenes of Iranian cellular networks, providing its operators a broad menu of remote commands to alter, disrupt, and monitor how customers use their phones. The tools can slow their data connections to a crawl, break the encryption of phone calls, track the movements of individuals or large groups, and produce detailed metadata summaries of who spoke to whom, when, and where. Such a system could help the government invisibly quash the ongoing protests - or those of tomorrow - an expert who reviewed the SIAM documents told The Intercept."

"Data collection-as Parscale's comment suggested-is perhaps the most powerful thing the Trump 2020 app does. On signing up, users are required to provide a phone number for a verification code, as well as their full name, email address, and zip code. They are also highly encouraged to share the app with their existing contacts. This is part of a campaign strategy for reaching the 40 to 50 million citizens expected to vote for Trump's reelection: to put it bluntly, the campaign says it intends to collect every single one of these voters' cell-phone numbers. This strategy means the app also makes extensive permission requests, asking for access to location data, phone identity, and control over the handset's Bluetooth function."

"There are clear indications that the UK government is now actively considering use of the technology as a way of easing the lockdown. If this signals an outbreak in Whitehall of tech "solutionism" - the belief that for every problem there is a technological answer - then we should be concerned. Tech solutions often do as much harm as good, for example, by increasing social exclusion, lacking accountability and failing to make real inroads into the problem they are supposedly addressing."

"The software is made by BlackBag Technologies, an American company that was bought last year by Cellebrite of Israel. Both companies also make other sophisticated tools to infiltrate locked or encrypted devices and suck out their data, including location-tracking information."

"The FBI can issue national security letters to conduct online surveillance in the US without court approval, but requests often come with a gagging order, which prevents websites from publicly disclosing them. To get around this, many websites state that they have not received any classified requests."

"Police are facing calls to halt the use of facial recognition software to search for suspected criminals in public after independent analysis found matches were only correct in a fifth of cases and the system was likely to break human rights laws."