As part of a larger “Smart Nation” initiative, the Singapore government announced plans to roll out a “Lamppost-as-a-Platform” pilot project next year and is currently accepting bids until May, according to Reuters. As part of the project, more than 100,000 surveillance cameras equipped with facial recognition software will be spread throughout the city’s lampposts to perform “crowd analytics” and support the government’s anti-terror operations. Adam Schwartz, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, warned against implementing facial recognition surveillance, adding there is concern over how the technology could be turned on political opponents or used to curb free speech.
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