On  @SamHarrisOrg said:
"Welcome to the panopticon...
China becomes an episode of Black Mirror"
and shared this article:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/china-social-credit-a-model-citizen-in-a-digital-dictatorship/10200278

to which my response was:
"Give it 5-10 years, then we'll have it too, but with better marketing, but effectively similar.
IIRC Eindhoven has a system (in pilot?) 'similar' as shown in the head picture (Person of Interest style) ... for a snitch city project. Fighting crime and/or terrorism will be used too"

Leave no dark corner

Dandan Fan's every move will soon be watched and judged by her government, and she's happy about that. "Social credit" will unite Big Brother and big data to coerce more than a billion people.

ABC News

It looks like (especially) Barcelona and Amsterdam at least have some sensible approach wrt 'smart cities':
https://decorrespondent.nl/8977/zo-voorkomen-we-dat-onze-steden-veranderen-in-laboratoria-voor-techbedrijven/130639713578-4459edc3
(dutch)

Toronto OTOH, holy shit.
https://theintercept.com/2018/11/13/google-quayside-toronto-smart-city/

“The genesis of the thinking for Sidewalk Labs came from Google’s founders getting excited thinking of ‘all the things you could do if someone would just give us a city and put us in charge’” - Eric Schmidt

Toronto is getting everything you'd expect when you collaborate with Google:
a dystopian nightmare

Zo voorkomen we dat onze steden veranderen in laboratoria voor techbedrijven

In Amsterdam en Barcelona wordt een nieuw soort slimme stad gebouwd. Een waar burgers – niet de techbedrijven – aan zet zijn.

Came to that article from The Intercept from https://theintercept.com/2019/01/28/google-alphabet-sidewalk-labs-replica-cellphone-data/ which was linked in the article from De Correspondent.

"No Google data is used." claims Bowden from Sidewalk Labs
Further down the article:
"data is sourced from 'Android Phones and Google apps.'" and "based off of Google data."
Who would've thought Google is lying ...

Relevance for this thread:
'Smart Cities' is better marketing.

If you're not careful like Barcelona & Amsterdam, you'll get your panopticon.

Google’s Sidewalk Labs Plans to Package and Sell Location Data on Millions of Cellphones

Google's sibling company Sidewalk Labs offers planning agencies the ability to model an entire city's patterns of movement.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/amazon-teams-government-deploy-dangerous-new

"With Rekognition*, a government can now build a system to automate the identification and tracking of anyone. If police body cameras, for example, were outfitted with facial recognition, devices intended for officer transparency and accountability would further transform into surveillance machines aimed at the public."

police body cameras for officer transparency and accountability = better marketing

* Amazon service for facial recognition.

Amazon Teams Up With Government to Deploy Dangerous New Facial Recognition Technology

Amazon, which got its start selling books and still bills itself as “Earth’s most customer-centric company,” has officially entered the surveillance business. The company has developed a powerful and dangerous new facial recognition system and is actively helping governments deploy it. Amazon calls the service “Rekognition.” 

That blog post is linked from https://theintercept.com/2019/02/08/jeff-bezos-protests-the-invasion-of-his-privacy-as-amazon-builds-a-sprawling-surveillance-state-for-everyone-else/

"In a separate advisory, the ACLU said of this face-recognition software that Amazon’s “marketing materials read like a user manual for the type of authoritarian surveillance you can currently see in China.”"

Well, this is a surprise ... it turns out I was way too optimistic with my 5-10 years 😕

Lots of Americans seem to love Amazon and Jeff Bezos as he is a self-made billionaire.
Mass surveillance is indeed quite lucrative :-(

Jeff Bezos Protests the Invasion of His Privacy, as Amazon Builds a Sprawling Surveillance State for Everyone Else

One of the world's greatest privacy invaders just had his privacy invaded.

Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff emailed out the company’s new mission:
use consumer electronics to fight crime.
“We are going to war with anyone that wants to harm a neighborhood”

Ring is a company now owned by Amazon.

https://theintercept.com/2019/02/14/amazon-ring-police-surveillance/

"Ring products come with access to a social app called Neighbors that allows customers to not just to keep tabs on their own property, but also to share information about suspicious-looking individuals and alleged criminality with the rest of the block."

Amazon’s Home Surveillance Chief Declared War on “Dirtbag Criminals” as Company Got Closer to Police

Video and internal emails show how Amazon's Ring has blurred line between private innovation and public law enforcement.

“The Neighbors App is the new neighborhood watch that brings your community together to help create safer neighborhoods”

That's better marketing for you.

"A Ring video that appears to have been produced for police reveals that the company has gone out of its way to build a bespoke portal for law enforcement officers who want access to the enormous volume of residential surveillance footage generated by customers’ cameras."

This site is called the Ring Neighborhoods Portal

"Not only does this portal allow police to view Ring customers on a handy, Google-powered map, but it also makes requesting customer surveillance video a matter of several clicks."

"Police can select the homes they’re interested in, and Ring takes it from there, creating an auto-generated form letter that prompts users to provide access to their footage."

Technically, you can deny that request ...

“the portal blurs the line between corporate and government surveillance”

"Technically, you can deny that request ..."

Ring got you covered, or more accurately, got the police covered:
https://mastodon.social/@torproject/103261414179907895

Reminds me of "The cloud is just someone else's computer" 🤔

Normally I like decentralization, but not when it comes to spying, where normal people contribute to a global surveillance system. I assume it's unknowingly, but that's what better/deceptive marketing does to you/society.

And now you know why I toot-ed so much about Ring (and Amazon)