Australian Atheists Forum

Irrev-Black wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2023 8:12 am I'm not a smartphone type by nature: I don't even send text messages, and I don't like reading 'em, and my dry, old fingers don't work with touchscreens.

My phone traffic is so reliably minimal, I can tell almost immediately if a call is going to be the Chinese Embassy Impersonator or one of its ilk.

Deaf old men have an excuse for answering with a testy, nasal, "Hegh?" - try using that as any form of yes/no verification in a bank scam, chap!

I was an early adopter of email, even when my hearing was so much better, on account of the audit trail in header text.

My phone might, and I stress might, provide a track of my very predictable whereabouts, but I suspect even an AI would be bored shitless surveilling me.

Irrev-Black wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2023 8:12 am(el snippo)

My phone might, and I stress might, provide a track of my very predictable whereabouts, but I suspect even an AI would be bored shitless surveilling me.

In 2020, amidst the George Floyd protests and widespread anti-police sentiment, New Orleans was one of several cities where local government voted to ban the use of facial recognition by the cops. The decision was hailed as a great victory by civil liberties advocates. Less than two years later, though, the ban was overturned when the city council voted to allow limited use of the technology when police were investigating “crimes of violence” or were attempting to ID a missing person. At the time, local politicians reasoned that re-instituting face-recording capabilities was really “a win for everybody” and “a tremendous stride towards greater public safety.” Unfortunately, this week’s report would seem to show that those politicians were just saying that to win political points.

The report’s sample size is small, indicating cops rarely even needed to use facial recognition technology. In addition to the revelation about the scanning tech’s zero-arrest record, the NOLA safety review shows that police only used it a total of 13 times during the period observed. Of those searches, only five led to matches and, of those matches, two were considered “bad,” meaning the technology identified a person who was actually “not suspected of having committed the crime.” All of the search requests were related to Black suspects, the report notes. Researchers have found facial recognition technology is less reliable in its attempts to identify people with darker skin.

Irrev-Black wrote: ↑Tue Aug 01, 2023 10:47 am Say you've got expensive facial tracking tech, and nine months' use of that tech by a police department leads to exactly NO arrests, let alone convictions.

Where do you go from this point?

joele wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2023 9:04 am Now that is creepy as hell..

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-10/ ... /102700822

Each state and territory requires people who work with children to have a working with children clearance.

There are differences between state and territory jurisdictions but applicants are required to prove their identity and provide prior aliases.

At the centre of the process is a police criminal history check. Certain records, including charges or convictions for child sexual offences or other violent offences would see an application denied.

This is a start. But it does not mean all employees with a clearance are trustworthy. Unfortunately, many offenders remain undetected, let alone prosecuted. And working with children may give employees the opportunity to offend for the first time, or trigger previously unrealised motivations to offend.

The man charged with 1,623 child abuse offences in multiple jurisdictions, including Queensland, had passed the state’s “blue card” check, clearing him to work with children.

The physical environment of a childcare centre and how it is managed can significantly reduce the opportunity for abuse to occur. Open plan centres allow for natural surveillance and reduce the likelihood of offending.

Where possible, it is also important to prevent blind spots (created by moving furniture, covering windows or building cubbies) that obstruct the natural line of sight. If there are blind spots like windowless offices or storerooms, open door policies or CCTV can be used.

On top of all this, centres can require staff to always be in line of sight of another staff member.