14 DAY TRIAL // The European Union’s INDECT project has been criticized on numerous occasions for privacy abuse, conspiracy and the fact that it collects personal data, but now Anonymous hacktivists have taken the matter into their hands and revealed their plans for a massive protest on July 28, 2012.
“The application of INDECT aims to analyze conspicuous behavior to prevent crimes, in virtual life as well as in real life, before they actually happen,” the hacktivists said.
“Not only does this sound crazy, it is cutting deeply into our basic right to privacy, because those cameras will be able to replicate scanned personal biometrical features with existing digital files about persons in databases such as social networks,” they added.
“Hence, every person could be retraced and supervised, anybody who says or does anything ‘abnormal’ or anything which the system considers to be ‘threatening’ both on the internet and in real life, is potentially suspicious.”
Anonymous wants to raise awareness on the matter among the citizens of the European Union and warn them about the potential outcome. For this, they call their fellow activists to spread the message and join the protests.
“Basic rights weren't given to us as a matter of course, but many generations kept fighting for them. Don't let those rights be taken away from us now!”
So far, the video released by the hacktivists hasn’t been viewed by many people, but there’s over a month until July 28 so anything can happen in the meantime. It will be interesting to see if Anonymous’ initiative will catch on.
INDECT is not as well-known as the other “projects” that have raised privacy concerns, but it’s starting to become more and more contested.
More information on INDECT can be found on Wikipedia and on the protest website stop-indect.info.
Here is the video released by Anonymous to announce the protests:
