CROWD CONTROL TECHNOLOGIES - Omega Research Foundation

used CS gas to literally fumigate anti-government demonstrations on a scale in a different league to
even that used by the Police at the anti-WTO demonstrations in Seattle last year, but on a routine basis
week in, week out. Yet according to the LA Times, last year the South Korean police substituted their
Darth Vader body armour and chemical fogging tactics with a move towards putting unarmed
policewomen to the front lines during demonstrations to calm protestors. The results were impressive
and instead of the 220,000 canisters of teargas used in 1997, in 1999 none were used. The only
casualty was the Seoul based tear gas company Dae-A Chemical Industry which closed down last
April. It is perhaps significant that because women face much steeper odds getting accepted into the
police force in Seoul (only 1 in 200 women are accepted onto the force, whereas 1 in10 males applying
are hired), police women tend to much better educated than their male counterparts. All are graduates
of 4-year colleges, whereas only 80% of the men hold Bachelors degrees. 383 The lessons here are
quite important, since the Korean Police Authorities have recognised that police-crowd confrontations
are a process not a single event. More peaceful policing tactics can create more peaceful outcomes.
The positive benefits are more than just less tear gas on the streets of Seoul. Now that fewer riot police
are required, riot officers are being redeployed to traffic control and crime prevention. The European
Parliament might like to learn more from the Seoul Police themselves by organising an official visit for
relevant Members and Officers to meet with their European counterparts.
7.4 CCTV Surveillance and Algorithmic Systems. One apparently seductive alternative option is the
notion of substituting CCTV systems for public order riot squads. However, once a public order incident
develops, security force commanders prefer the deployment of a real-time dispersal response. In that
sense, any passive alternative is not useful in dealing with the immediate consequences, although
CCTV networks could provide evidence after the event, of those involved in any incidents. What tends
to happen in practice is that it is not a case of either crowd control weapons or CCTV but both and
more. This is certainly the case in the UK where police and military officers have access to both
alternatives. For example, )Heli Tele( helicopter mounted CCTV is frequently used to target )snatch
squads( onto alleged ring-leaders. In situations such as Indonesia (where European companies have
sold both airborne surveillance systems, crowd marking & dispersal systems, as well as powerful
command, control & information computer systems) such targeting may have fatal consequences.
Nevertheless, there are public order situations where CCTV might have both a deterrent effect and
a positive role in identifying both hooligans and members of the police and security services who may
have exceeded their remit. However even in the United Kingdom, which is the most heavily surveilled
country in the EU, the ubiquitous presence of CCTV cameras does not dissuaded football hooligans
from threatening and anti-social behaviour. Indeed, the most comprehensive recent survey of the utility
of CCTV surveillance systems in preventing crime (undertaken for the Scottish Office by Professor
Jason Ditton of the Scottish Centre for Criminology) found that they did not. Ditton said that )the
cameras had not lived up to their early promise(. After four years of monitoring the monitors, the
professor called for )an independent watchdog to oversee the use of the technology(. 384
Members of the Committee will recall that a previous STOA document (PE 166.499) noted the
emergence of face-recognition cameras but thought that deployment of such systems was five years
away. Yet the Mandrake face-recognition system has already been deployed since November 1998 in
Newham, London and has created the basis of a universal identity recognition network. Such systems
work by scanning the geometry of faces in a crowd and recognising if they are held in a database of
individuals of interest. They are not totally reliable generating reliable hits in a claimed 80% of cases
which in the best case means a 1 in 5 chance of a false identification. 385
The Newham system is being extended and if that process continues, the logic is a total
surveillance society where everyones movements are tracked and eventually their speech and
friendship networks as well. Few political systems, even in Europe, have enjoyed absolute certainty of
long term stability within a democratic framework and there is no guarantee that such stability will
continue. Any mass surveillance system is potentially much more than an anti-riot network and it is on
balance probably wise to resist a universal extension of such schemes and keep them limited and
local. 386
lviii