World Economic Forum totalitarian surveillance fantasy will soon become reality

from Norbert Häring

From March 2021 people with an “I’ve got nothing to hide” attitude will be able to get around border and ticket controls at St Pancras International Station in London on their way to the Continent via the Eurostar, All they will have to do is upload a suitable portrait photo and a copy of their identity document to a government server. Then, instead of standing in a queue, they can walk down a camera-tagged “biometric corridor” without having to show a document. The passport and ticket will, however, be needed at the destination, at least until the brave new total surveillance world of the World Economic Forum has been implemented there, too.

The Known Traveller Program, which has been jointly developed by the World Economic Forum and US Homeland Security, initially provides for international air travel in which travellers collect identity data about themselves in a block chain to which only they have access. If they want to cross a border, they may announce their travel plans in advance and release their data. Cameras with facial recognition software automatically recognize them and let them pass the queues at the controls. What London now wants to implement for Eurostar traffic, follows exactly this principle (apart from the blockchain data-ownership folklore of the Known Traveller).