VOA慢速英语2011--Privacy Concerns Over Facial Recognition

Technology Report - Privacy Concerns Over Facial Recognition Systems

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.
Today we take another look at facial recognition systems. These can tag friends in Facebook photos or help police identify suspects in the recent riots in Britain.
Kurt Roemer is chief security strategist for Citrix Systems in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He says technology makes it easier than ever for governments to identify people.
KURT ROEMER: "Governments can go through and identify, profile and target people, basically in any order. And it is very much a fine line between effective law enforcement and privacy.”
Kristene Unsworth researches information policy at Drexel College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She says she is concerned that governments and police are increasingly using facial recognition software without clearly defined policies.
KRISTENE UNSWORTH: “There is so much secrecy¹ around this information that we don’t really know how these kind of images or other sorts of personal data points are being used, how long the information is being retained. All of those kinds of things. So I guess for me it is an issue of transparency and dialogue.”
Questions like these are part of a larger debate about privacy and free speech. After the riots, British Prime Minister David Cameron raised the possibility of interfering² with social networks. He said the question was whether it would be right to stop people from communicating "when we know they are plotting violence, disorder³ and criminality."
China's official news agency Xinhua says the British government has "recognized that a balance needs to be struck between freedom and the monitoring of social media tools." Xinhua added, "We may wonder why western leaders, on the one hand, tend to indiscriminately accuse other nations of monitoring, but on the other take for granted their steps to monitor and control the Internet."
Europe has some of the world's strongest policies on privacy rights. But Kurt Roemer says, like other western governments, they have not clearly defined their policies on new technologies.
KURT ROEMER: “China calling that out really shows that we have some issues to address here from a policy perspective, in addition to technology.”
One debate involves an action in San Francisco on August eleventh by the Bay Area Rapid Transit⁴ system. BART disabled wireless⁵ service in some of its underground stations for three hours. It says protesters were planning to use mobile devices to organize activities to disrupt train service. BART has faced protests over what activists⁶ say is police abuse by transit officers.
BART says it acted to protect public safety. The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California says the decision was in effect an effort by a government agency "to silence its critics." The Federal Communications Commission says it is collecting information about BART's actions.
And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report, written by June Simms. You can find part one of our report on facial recognition systems at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.

1 secrecy   

n.秘密，保密，隐蔽

参考例句：

• All the researchers on the project are sworn to secrecy.该项目的所有研究人员都按要求起誓保守秘密。
• Complete secrecy surrounded the meeting.会议在绝对机密的环境中进行。

2 interfering   

adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词

参考例句：

• He's an interfering old busybody! 他老爱管闲事！
• I wish my mother would stop interfering and let me make my own decisions. 我希望我母亲不再干预，让我自己拿主意。

3 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

4 transit   

n.经过，运输；vt.穿越，旋转；vi.越过

参考例句：

• His luggage was lost in transit.他的行李在运送中丢失。
• The canal can transit a total of 50 ships daily.这条运河每天能通过50条船。

5 wireless   

adj.无线的；n.无线电

参考例句：

• There are a lot of wireless links in a radio.收音机里有许多无线电线路。
• Wireless messages tell us that the ship was sinking.无线电报告知我们那艘船正在下沉。

6 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》