George Orwell’s 1984 warned of a future where Big Brother watches every move. Today, modern technology is making that vision a reality, and Oracle founder Larry Ellison—the world’s second-richest person—sees a growing opportunity for his company to help authorities analyze real-time data from millions of surveillance cameras.
“Citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on,” Ellison said in an hour-long Q&A during Oracle’s Financial Analyst Meeting last week.
Fortune reached out to Oracle for clarification, but officials did not respond.
The world Ellison described sounds eerily similar to China’s social credit system, which controls citizens’ behavior through a network of cameras using some of the world’s most advanced facial recognition software to surveil their populace.
Nevertheless, his prediction may already be here in a sense.
Nowadays, it’s commonplace for Americans to whip out their smartphone and film their fellow citizens before uploading it to social media.
Some confrontations can go viral, with outraged users often attempting to doxx individuals and even coordinate a pressure campaign to get them fired.
This risk may not even be confined to those caught acting poorly in public.
Elon Musk, for example, is being sued by Jewish student Ben Brody for defamation after claiming on social media he was, in fact, a neo-Nazi (Musk’s attempt to have the case dismissed for reasons of constitutionally protected free speech was overruled by a court in May).
Arrest of Miami Dolphins star suggests police bodycam surveillance not enough
In Ellison’s view, citizens and state security organs like the police monitoring their every move will, however, be on an equal playing field.
He expects law enforcement officers will also be subject to constant surveillance.
“Every police officer is going to be supervised at all times, and if there’s a problem, AI will report that problem,” he said, in comments cited by Tech Crunch.
Whether this kind of 24-7 surveillance of everyone and everything means law enforcement will automatically be on their best behavior is, however, debatable.
George Floyd’s murderer was convicted largely because the former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was filmed in broad daylight for more than nine minutes as he slowly choked the man to death.
While the footage was shot close enough to Chauvin to suggest he was aware he was being filmed, he may not have known.
That isn’t true, though, for Miami-Dade officer Danny Torres, who was suspended from duty after footage from his own colleagues’ bodycams showed he used unnecessary and excessive force when arresting NFL football player Tyreek Hill for speeding.
The Miami-Dade police department apologized, saying Torres’s actions “clearly do not meet the standard we expect from law enforcement.”
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