SURVEILLANCE
SOCIETY
Everything has Eyes, Ears & Sensors
Prof Peter Cochrane
cochrane.org.uk

D y s t o p i a n s
Predictors-Tech & Sociology
P l e a s e d t o s e e c a m e ra s a n d
surveillance devices everywhere,
but amazed that we buy and
install them and become upset if
no one is watching!
George
Orwell
Aldous
Huxley

N O R M S
Pre-Technology
State controlism
Know your place
Religious diktat
Paper dominant
Controlled info
Limited comms
Limited rights
Limited views
Privacy valued
Few educated
Poor mobility
Hierarchical
Status rules
Many of today’s values stem
from this era when the lack
of technology constrained
every aspect of life and
social interaction

State, government, church,
and institutional influence
and control is weakened as
people gain education and
u n d e r s t a n d i n g a i d e d b y
communication technologies
Rapid Change
Sudden mass changing of
mindsets through travel,
adversity, danger, and
extreme experiences
N O R M S
WWI + II + Vietnam
are major agents of
industrial & societal
change compounded
by rapid technology
advances spanning
every generation
that followed

<75 years ago
People were very careful
Privacy was valued and all
forms of communication
was considered & guarded

<75 years ago
People were very careful
Privacy was valued and all
forms of communication
was considered & guarded
The business of listening
and surveillance was very
expensive and demanded
many highly trained and
skilled people

The business of listening and
surveillance is now very low
cost & rapidly extending beyond
voice, vision and text with
machines overtaking humans as
the primary observers!
Beyond science fiction
Our technology advancement
has proceeded at >1000 fold
every decade and shows no
sign of slowing down
I n <30 y ea rs

Everything has relaxed
The Internet
Mobile Devices
Social Networks
Information Access
Demand Driven Media
On-Line Communities
On-Line Commerce/Trade
Social norms
Globalisation
Working practices
International travel
Population migration
Laws
Education
Democracy
Wealth creation
Speed of change
Despots
Truth decay
Monetary greed
Ethical distortions
++++++
Robotics
Automation
Artificial Life
Cyber-Crime
Cyber-Terrorism
Artificial Intelligence
Information Economy
Automated Surveillance
Inversion of social norms
In <30 years

The business of listening and
physical surveillance is now
highly automated and covertly
expanding to new domains
that oversee every aspect of
human and machine activity
Pocket ware
T h e m o b i l e r e v o l u t i o n
Driven by stellar solid state
tech achieving exponentially
more for exponentially less
decade-on-decade….

In <30 years
Everything has relaxed
IBM DeepBlue = 11.3 GFlops
IN < 21 years 2017 iPhoneX = 600 GFlops
Exponential Change
>60 x More PowerfulCost >>3M
Power > 3kW
Cost <1k
Power < 5W

G a t h e r i n g D A T A
W h a t d o t h e y k n o w a b o u t u s ?
Accelerometer
Thermometer
Microphone/s
Hygrometer
Barometer
Light Level
Gyroscope
Proximity
Camera/s
Compass
Apps
GPS
+++
eMail
TXTs
Alerts
Travel
Calendar
Messages
Passwords
Who we call
Who calls us
Address book
Browser history
Location history
Account(s) detail(s)
Net connect history
Physical activity history
Touch
Users
Usage
Habits
Signals
Devices
Eyeprint
Faceprint
Voiceprint
Transport
Payments
Purchases
Fingerprint
Action Rhythm
++++

FREEDOM
Connect at will
Emergent properties including new
levels of openness and sharing plus
self help and new
c o m m u n i t i e s … a l l u n f o r e s e e n
unpredictable and mostly very
beneficial to society
A bottom up evolution and build
revealing a deep
and hidden social need to be a part
of a wider global community that in
turn generates ever more
data about all of us and
all our friends day-on-day

C O M E T H E I OT
E v e r y t h i n g w i l l c o n n e c t

C a m e r a s e v e r y w h e r e
A N D T H E N

Re a l t i m e re c o g n i t i o n
A N D T H E N

Recognition everywhere
A N D T H E N

Dashcams everywhere
A N D T H E N

Tr a n s a c t i o n s + D a t a
A N D T H E N

C a m e r a s e v e r y w h e r e
DIGITAL FOOTPRINT
O u r i n e v i t a b l e s l i m e t r a i l
Who & what we are
W h o w e k n o w
W h o k n o w s u s
W h a t w e o w n
W h a t w e b u y
W h e r e w e g o
W h a t w e s a y
W h a t w e d o
W h o w e l o v e
W h o w e l i k e
Who we hate
H o w w e f e e l
H o w w e l i v e
O u r o p i n i o n s
P r e f e r e n c e s
Relationships
Our devices
O u r f a m i l y
I n c o m i n g s
O u t g o i n g s
D i e t
T r i p s
Health
T r e n d s
Ve h i c l e s
H i s t o r y
P o l i t i c s
Biography
F i n a n c e s
B u s i n e s s
C o l l e a g u e s
E d u c a t i o n
M e d i c a t i o n
Relationships
W h o w e v i s i t
Where we live
A c q u a i n t a n c e s
W h e re w e s t a y
Where we work
+ + + + + + + + + + + +
Digital events that relate
directly to our activities
directly, or indirectly, via
our devices and/or actions
can now number in the 100s

DIGITAL FOOTPRINTs
H a r b o u r a n i n h e r e n t a b i l i t y t o
u n i q u e l y i d e n t i f y u s a l l t o
a c c u r a c i e s w a y b e y o n d
a n y t h i n g w e h a v e e v e r
e x p e r i e n c e d b e f o r e
D e s t i n e d t o b e c o m e
t h e p r i m a r y c h o i c e f o r
s e c u r i n g t h e r e a l
i d e n t i t y o f p e o p l e ,
m a c h i n e s , a n d a l l t h a t
w e p o s s e s o r u s e !
Soon to be the primary identifier
> > 1 0 6
g r e a t e r
a c c u r a c y

B I G G ES T C H A L L E N G E
D y n a m i c a n d d i s p a r a t e s o u r c e s a r e v e r y
d i f f i c u l t t o t a p , v e r i f y & b r i n g t o g e t h e r
i n r e a l t i m e a s a n a c c u r a t e c o n t i n u u m
General integration of all sources
Historical attribution over
long periods is a far easier
method of establishing the
truth over large populations
of dynamic peoples/devices

IGNORANCE
The biggest risk?
“now supercharged by
our technologies and a
c r e e p i n g p o l i t i c a l
purpose aided by falling
education standards”

B I G G ES T R I S K ?
Errors and mono - cu ltures
Systemic & random errors creeping into the raw day realising systems that
see invalid judgements and decisions with no recourse to any form of appeal
or correction.
Observed behaviours and habits employed to steer individuals and groups
toward politically and socially accepted behaviours.

B I G G ES T R I S K ?
Errors and mono - cu ltures
Systemic & random errors creeping into the raw day realising systems that
see invalid judgements and decisions with no recourse to any form of appeal
or correction.
Observed behaviours and habits employed to steer individuals and groups
toward politically and socially accepted behaviours.
Day 1 Human bias designed &
programmed into systems that
remain undiscovered by testing
or are just overlooked in the
race to market

G e n e s i s
T h e g a m e i s G O

G e n e s i s
T h e g a m e i s G O
HARVARD POLITICAL REVIEW
Artificially Intelligent Criminal Justice Reform
By Vinay Iyengar | July 23, 2017
The AI Revolution: Current Applications in Criminal Justice
AI technologies are yielding advanced machine learning for vehicles, facial recognition, medical diagnostics and other
applications. The criminal justice system has recently become a burgeoning new field for AI.
Most criminal justice applications focus on risk assessment tools, which analyze vast amounts of data for criminal activity
predictive purposes - a practice known as predictive policing. Judicial systems are also using predictive tools to calculate a
defendant’s probability of recidivism, allowing courts to more strategically determine bail amounts, sentence lengths, and
parole opportunities.
…whilst risk assessment should ameliorate human bias, some algorithms have received harsh criticism for how strongly
their results correlate with race. Some of these biases may be rooted in the data that is used to train the algorithms in the
first place.

N E M e s i s
Death of diversity
“A growing diversity of skills,
e d u c a t i o n , p e o p l e s , m a c h i n e s ,
m a t e r i a l s a n d p ro c e s s e s a re
t h e e s s e n t i a l s o f o u r f u t u re
survival”
“ D i v e r s i t y i n a l l i t s m a n y
forms has to be a given”

E V O L U T I O N
A p p l a u d s d i v e r s i t y
“ I f s h e h a s t a u g h t u s a n y t h i n g ; i t
i s t h a t d i v e r s i t y i s e s s e n t i a l t o
b o t h o u r p r o g r e s s a n d s u r v i v a l ”

H I S T O R Y
Sounds many warnings
“ M o n o c u l t u r e s c a n b e v e r y
e f f i c i e n t , b u t a t t h e p r i c e o f
b r i t t l e n e s s ; a n d s o t h e y a r e
p r o n e t o s u d d e n c o l l a p s e , a n d
o f t e n , a t o t a l e x t i n c t i o n ”

F U T U R E
Risks & rewards
We cannot deviate from
this general trajectory as it
is a necessity if we are to
realise sustainable societies
YOU should proceed
with great caution. WE have
to get it right from Day 1

“ A I a n d R o b o t i c s a r e
g e r m a n e t o t h e s u r v i v a l
o f o u r s p e c i e s - a n d s o
i s o u r d a t a ”
Thank You
cochrane.org.uk