Inside Safe City, Moscow’s AI Surveillance Dystopia
https://www.wired.com/story/moscow-safe-city-ntechlab/ (archyvas)
https://www.wired.com/story/moscow-safe-city-ntechlab/ (archyvas)
Vyborov finds himself at the bottom of a slippery slope that privacy advocates have long warned about. Under the guise of smart city technology, authoritarian and democratic governments have rolled out huge networks of security cameras and used artificial intelligence to try to ensure there is no place to hide.
Vyborov wasn’t arrested that day, but the police informed him that he was under surveillance through Sfera, one of Moscow’s face recognition systems, for participating in unsanctioned rallies. Considered one of the most efficient surveillance systems, Sfera [...]
While Moscow operates one of the world’s most pervasive surveillance systems, Russian law does not safeguard individual privacy. With seemingly no hope of recourse, some activists have been forced to leave Russia altogether. Popova is now on the list of foreign agents and is living in an undisclosed overseas location.
NTechLab was one of many companies building the slew of systems that would later be branded Safe City. NTechLab created face recognition tech for Moscow’s growing surveillance apparatus, including Tevian, and Kipod, and VisionLabs. Moscow's Transportation Department said in social media posts that Sfera was built using VisionLabs technology.
“No one expected that the country would turn into hell in two years,” says one former NTechLab employee, who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons.
[...] he called NTechLab “the blacksmith of the Digital Gulag.”
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