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Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears

Reuters Published on Fri, Apr 13, 2018 / 3:50 PM GMT+8

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SINGAPORE (Apr 13) In the not too distant future, surveillance cameras sitting atop over 100,000 lampposts in Singapore could help authorities pick out and recognise faces in crowds across the island-state.

The plan to install the cameras, which will be linked to facial recognition software, is raising privacy fears among security experts and rights groups. The government said the system would allow it to "perform crowd analytics" and support anti-terror operations.

GovTech, the Singapore government agency in charge of a "Lamppost-as-a-Platform" pilot project scheduled to begin next year, has given companies until May to register their interest in providing technology for the network.