In this photograph taken on September 6, 2021, a man gestures to an autonomous robot named “Xavier” as it patrols a shopping and residential district during a three-week trial by the Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX) in Singapore. AFP
SINGAPORE — Singapore has trialed patrol robots that blast warnings at people engaging in “undesirable social behavior”, adding to an arsenal of surveillance technology in the tightly controlled city-state that is fueling privacy concerns.
From vast numbers of CCTV cameras to trials of lampposts kitted out with facial recognition tech, Singapore is seeing an explosion of tools to track its inhabitants.
Officials have long pushed a vision of a hyper-efficient, tech-driven “smart nation”, but activists say privacy is being sacrificed and people have little control over what happens to their data.
Singapore is frequently criticized for curbing civil liberties and people are accustomed to tight controls, but there is still growing unease at intrusive tech.
TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY
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The government’s latest surveillance devices are robots on wheels, with seven cameras, that issue warnings to the public and detect “undesirable social behavior”.
This includes smoking in prohibited areas, improperly parking bicycles, and breaching coronavirus social-distancing rules.
