| Babylon and Big Brother Introduce Surveillance State AKA “Safe Cities†|
| Wed, November 20, 2019 |
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| And while police will sleep safer with those buses, what about the residents of Belize City? It's the most high crime area of the country and now - under the Safe Cities initiative - police are hoping to blanket the city with over a hundred cameras. Williams told us more about the initiative:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"We have come to some agreement that the project will be piloted this December and January of next year. So, we are in the preparation stage for the implementation of the piloting project. We are constructing the camera command center which will be right behind the Raccoon Police Station. As soon as that is constructed, then we will fit the building with the necessary equipment and monitoring screens and then we should be able to pilot the program with 12 vehicle licenses plate reader and 12 facial recognition cameras. We anticipate that once the pilot is successful, we will then go into full implementation by March of next year. That, again, will see a number of cameras deployed across the city in addition to what we already have and we are also in communication with the Taiwanese Embassy. As a matter of fact just today, I handed over to the Taiwanese Embassy a proposal for 100 cameras to be added to the camera system we already have in place and hopefully by the end of next year we will be able to have over 200 cameras, high-definition with night vision capability cameras deployed across Belize City. That will help us to be able to have a greater control of the city through the monitoring of those cameras."
Reporter
"How do you address privacy issues that may come along and the public John and Jane public might say we are starting to get like States now, like big brother is watching 24/7?"
Chester Williams
"The good thing is that we have started this program about 2 years ago and I have not come across someone saying to us that they didn't want the camera in front of their homes, or on their streets. As a matter of fact we have received the opposite, where people are begging us to put some in front of their place. So I don't thing that will be an issue for us, but let me say that if it is that you are walking in public, there is no privacy. The cameras are not being placed in people's homes that we can monitor what they are doing in the privacy of their own home. It is focused on the streets and we monitor that which occur on the street and once you are on the street then there is no privacy issue."
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