Russia: the Moscow metro uses facial recognition to monitor its passengers
The Moscow metro initially plans to equip 85 stations with more than 300 screens equipped with the facial recognition system.
AP - Sergei Kiselev
Text by: Daniel Vallot Follow
4 min
Facial recognition cameras in advertising screens, this is what the Moscow City Hall plans to install in the metro of the Russian capital.
A project that obviously raises many questions in a city where video surveillance is already omnipresent.
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From our correspondent in Moscow,
The cameras will be installed inside screens which will themselves broadcast either advertisements or messages on metro traffic.
These screens are already very numerous in the Moscow metro.
But with this system, they will allow better monitoring of passengers.
According to the newspaper
Kommersant
which revealed this project, the Moscow metro initially plans to equip 85 stations with more than 300 of these spy screens, at a total cost of 930 million rubles, about 10 million euros.
A spokesperson for the metro says these cameras will not be used to identify users.
However, in the call for tenders, it is clearly specified that the cameras must be equipped with facial recognition technology.
It would therefore be a question above all of ensuring the safety of the passengers and not of monitoring them.
This is the argument put forward as always in these video surveillance projects.
In this specific case, the Moscow metro ensures that it wants to better control the flow of people, to anticipate traffic jams that could form on the platforms, or to intervene quickly in the event of discomfort.
The Covid-19 argument is also put forward since this increased surveillance would allow a better distribution of the flow.
In the call for tenders, it is nevertheless specified that the cameras must be able to detect “
rapid
”
movements
and free-rider attempts.
It is therefore also an instrument of control and surveillance.
Collection of personal data
Could these cameras also be used for commercial purposes?
It is the fear of the associations which fight against this excessive video surveillance.
The newspaper
Kommersant
quotes one of these associations which considers possible, because of the technical characteristics of the project, a collection of personal data of the users who will pass in front of these screens.
This data can then be sent to advertisers.
This is one of the worrying dimensions of this project.
There is of course also the police aspect.
It should be noted that Moscow has acquired in recent years a very large network of facial recognition cameras with more than 100,000 throughout the city.
Their use continues to be controversial: they have been used, for example, to control the quarantine of Covid-19 patients.
They are also accused of being used by the police to identify and question opponents during
pro-Navalny protests
.
Another controversial project, which targets schools across the country.
Facial recognition surveillance cameras have already been installed in more than 1,600 schools.
How was this project named by its designers?
Quite simply by the name of
Orwell
, like the British author who had anticipated in his novel
1984
an ultra repressive and ultra supervised society.
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