🚨NEW: A law is in force *today* requiring venues to collect our personal data, or else be fined £500.
Pubs, cafés, restaurants, even workplace canteens must refuse entry to anyone who doesn’t want to share this data.
This change is huge. It's a mass recording of our movements.
As well as pubs, restaurants + workplace canteens, this law requires
sports clubs + gyms 🏋️♀️
heritage sites 🏰
arcades 🕹️
hotels 🏨
museums 🎨
libraries 📖
barbers 💇♂️
nail bars 💅
community + youth centres 👨👩👦👦
village halls 🏡
AND many other locations to collect personal data.
Venues must display Gov-issued QR codes which link to the NHS contact tracing app when it's launched next week.
Don’t have the app? You'll be required to leave contact details, the time + date of your visit, the size of your group + the name of any staff member you interact with
We always said a contact tracing app should be voluntary, non-discriminatory & non-punitive.
But the requirement to use the app to enter pubs, restaurants, gyms, libraries - or to give even more of your data if you don't use the app/have a smartphone - breaches those principles.
🛑 This new law is excessive, intrusive and poses serious privacy risks.🛑
The Government is increasingly relying on criminal sanctions to manage public health instead of trusting citizens to act responsibly with free will.
This approach is authoritarian. We will challenge it.
If you're adversely affected by this, whether as a customer, employee or business-owner, get in touch:
info @ bigbrotherwatch .org.uk
🚨Also new: if a restaurant, cafe, canteen, bar or pub has reason to believe the personal details you provide them are inaccurate (e.g. fake name/number) or incomplete, they are legally required to refuse you entry...
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💥NEW: We’ve obtained fresh documents that reveal the number of facial recognition searches of the passport database SURGED from just 2 in 2020 to 417 in 2023.
This means that the Government is allowing police to search over 58 million photographs.
Nobody signed up for this.
"This astonishing revelation shows both our privacy and democracy are at risk from secretive AI policing, and that members of the public are now subject to the inevitable risk of misidentifications and injustice.
Police officers can secretly take photos from protests, social media, or indeed anywhere and seek to identify members of the public without suspecting us of having committed any crime.
This is an historic breach of the right to privacy in Britain that must end. We’ve taken this legal action to defend the rights of tens of millions of innocent people in Britain" - @silkiecarlo
Iceland's rollout of facial recognition is chilling ❄️
Thousands of people will have their privacy rights violated just to buy basic necessities, and Iceland will turn its shoppers into suspects, making them submit to a biometric identity check as part of their daily lives.
Just last week we saw @Facewatch embroiled in a scandal when its dystopian tech was used to falsely accuse a woman of shoplifting, and throw her out of the store.
@icelandrichard should abandon this rollout and put its customers' privacy first, and the government must act to rein in the uncheck expansion of this intrusive technology.
#StopIcelandSpying
The technology is provided by @Facewatch, a company whose system was linked to the wrongful accusation and ejection of a mum from a Home Bargains store earlier this month
@Facewatch Facewatch has also been investigated by the UK data watchdog, the Information Commissioner, who concluded last year that the firm had breached data protection laws on 8 different counts.
🔴LIVE from Parliament: We're now launching our pioneering report, Big Bank is Watching You: Preserving Privacy Amid the Rise of #CBDCs
Follow for updates ⤵️
"A #CBDC would mark a profound shift in our relationship to the state because they have the potential for the Government to insert into every transaction we make"
Jasleen Chaggar, our legal and policy officer and a co-author of this report, opens the discussion
"A #CBDC is a solution in search of a problem"
@DominicCaddick, co-author of the report and an economist at @NEF echoes the conclusion drawn by The Economic Affairs Committee
🚨LIVE: Powers to spy on ALL of our bank accounts buried in the the Government’s Fraud, Error & Recovery Bill are being debated in Parliament now
These powers aimed at Britain's poorest will impact all of us, taking away our financial privacy & freedom
🧵FOLLOW BELOW 🧵
“The #Horizon scandal is a very recent reminder of how computer systems don’t always get it right”
@Helen_Whately brings up the Horizon scandal & questions how much the plans will cost banks. However, she says Conservative Party is broadly in favour of the intrusive powers as a continuation of their own policies.
"Last June an AI algorithm, incorrectly identified people that were potentially behaving fraudulently"
@Debbie_abrahams brings up similar recent examples of the dangers these powers pose, adding "that is really serious"
🔴11 years ago, @Snowden blew the whistle on mass surveillance.
UK intelligence agency GCHQ had spied on millions of Britons - with aid from the US National Security Agency
What surveillance operations did Snowden expose & where do we stand today? 🧵
👁️ Snowden blew the whistle on GCHQ's operation OPTIC NERVE
Britain's intelligence headquarters intercepted & stored webcam images from Yahoo chats of millions of users to trial automated searches using facial recognition.
⚠️ Today, police are conducting facial recognition searches using our PASSPORT PHOTOS
Shops across the UK are also using facial recognition to spy on customers
This generalised mass surveillance of the population is reversing the presumption of innocence
🚨BREAKING: Today, we're launching groundbreaking legal action against the use of facial recognition technology in the UK.
We’re supporting two members of the public, an anti-knife crime community worker and a teenager to bring legal challenges after the technology wrongly flagged them as criminals – and they sought our help.
And we're doing this for YOU - to stop the government's alarming push to expand live facial recognition technology, turning us all into walking ID cards.
With your support we can:
🔸Take groundbreaking legal action against police and shops' use of facial recognition
🔸Demand politicians roll back live facial recognition
🔸Give legal advice & support to people affected by live facial recognition
🔸Work with groups around the world fighting live facial recognition surveillance
This legal action to #StopFacialRecognition is the culmination of seven years of relentless campaigning, marked by countless highs and lows and immense hard work.