Eye on
Europe

With the U.K.’s unstoppable surveillance beast proving to have had no effect on crime, one would think the rest of Europe would dismiss 24/7 monitoring of the population as just another act of British folly. Instead, the EU has funded a five-year mission to develop a continent-wide network of thinking computers that constantly monitor the public on the streets, on their phones and computers looking for “abnormal behaviour.”

“Project Indect” has crime and technology outfits from 10 countries working on its development with the hope that, once completed, the AI will be capable of compiling threat analyses culled by interpreting e-mails, Internet activities, body language as caught on CCTV, conversations picked up via audio surveillance and movements as tracked via mobile devices.

Stephen Booth of Open Europe, an “independent think tank calling for radical reform of the EU,” says Indect is frighteningly intrusive, and points out that the EU lacks the “checks and balances” to operate in the interest of its citizens. It is Open Europe’s belief Indect is intended to become a tool of the Joint Situation Centre, an EU counter-terrorism branch, calling it the “beginnings of an EU secret service.”

by SCOTT SAXON