Why this anti-INDECT hype?
Today I passed the anti ACTA demo in Vienna and got a flyer by the Austrian pirate party. It said, among other things, that INDECT is the next surveillance law that the EU is preparing. This, and the rest of the anti-INDECT hype, just makes me mad for several reasons:
- INDECT is not a directive or law, it is a research project by 17 partners, mainly from Poland
- projects like INDECT get funded all the time, both by the EU and national governments
- there is nothing secret about it, anyone can form a consortium and apply for funding and it is in the interest of all participants (mostly universities) that results are published both in scientific as well as mainstream media (e.g. the list of Austrian security projects is easily accessible online).
In my opinion, the fact that a project like INDECT gets funded does not mean that the European Commission is planning to surveil all of its citizens and is planning a police state. Public safety and security is a research topic like any other. The possibility that this technology can be used to create an Orwellesque police state does not mean that anything like that will happen.
By the way: Such projects have to pass the scrutiny of an ethics committee and are required to implement data and privacy protection in all of their development stages. Of course, if this is taken seriously or not depends on the consortium members.
It is important to watch developments in this area and it is important that legislation complements all new technological developments. It is important that in new technology, especially in surveillance, Privacy by Design principles are built in. And a police state where personal freedom is threatened is nothing desirable. But projects like INDECT are no sign that this will happen. I wish INDECT would be treated by the media as it is: A research project with (in my opinion) partly unrealistic goals and maybe questionable intensions. But not a secret EU plan to control citizens.
Digital Privacy 
The mean reveals the end.
so, if they are not going to use the outcomes of the project, for why are we paying for it? That they are going to use this technology, shows already the fact that it WAS planned to use INDECT programms for eh Football EM in Poland…
Sorry but the fact only that those projects (and I have investigated Cordis myself and got quite scared of the FP7-Security Part of it!!) are visible to everybody, it does not mean they are more or less evli/good/sensible/whatever …
And there is not too much information there to be found, information that would go a little deeper that the akronym and such details…
Also, we cannot await from EVERYBODY to be able to do this research, as there are some skills/accesses required just as the language (most of it is in english), internet access and also knowledge about how to use (not everybod is familiar with the web!)
so the fact, the INDECT project ist project only (still, it has already been finished almost)and not a bill yet, for ME is not comforting
cheers sRomy
Of course the EU won’t fund research that is not interesting for them. So yes, projects like these get funded because the results might be interesting.
I do not have any personal interest in this project and I am not directly involved. However, I have been involved in a number of similar projects. And I have not found one that would bring results that can be applied any time soon in real-life. Only when a company picks up the technology, makes it into a product and sells it, it can be applied. And I believe that this won’t happen so soon.
Still, one day the technology will be usable and there will be proponents because it might help police work. I believe that it is important to be prepared, start a constructive discussion about this and find legislation that brings clear rules so security as well as personal freedom and privacy benefit.
“And I have not found one that would bring results that can be applied any time soon in real-life.”
Well, please don’t misunderstand myself, but just the fact that YOU do not find that would bring results being applied in real-life, is NO reason for me to feel safer!
I have been disappointed so many times by our authoroties and – to me this is not paranoia, but healthy skeptism – to always remember that they are NOT working in our interests rather in the industry’s and else’s interests.
WE DO NOT NEED such security processes! We are NOT in danger and mainly not indangered by ourselves.
We STILL live (officially() in democratic countries but NEVER EVER rely on this will always stay like this (especially if people do not care about their rights anymore) and believe me, any evil autohority that EVER might come into the power the will find EVERYTHIN well prepared for themselves.
NO there is NO justified indication and argument about why we are spending millions of EUROS (whereas everybody is teaching us about cuts and stuff) on a project, we actually do not really need or want or whatever
STOPP INDECT NOW and STOP the ESM as well as the lissabon bill as well as the EURO PACT including Euro Pact Plus
STOPP with all the people-depowering and repressing processes, bills and reserachs!
*NOW* 🙂
security
–> WE SONT NEEDMORE SECURITY WE NEED MORE MORALITY
as well as personal freedom
–> MY FREEDOM IS RATHER ENDANGERED THROUGH THIS BECAUSE I FEEL FREE TO SAY NO TO SUCH PROJECTS
–> privacy benefit
–> who messures that? who can say that I Personally benefit from this? Who is this private people who benefit? Do you know what “private” inf act means” it comes from Latin and means ” to dispossess so.”
WE THE PEOPLE ARE THE STATE AND NOT THE PRIVATE SECTOR!