INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Petersburg announced controversial plans to gear up thousands of the citys monitoring cameras with ethnic culture recognition software
application, the Kommersant company paper reported Thursday.Oleg Kapitanov, head of interethnic relations for the St
Petersburg local government, stated around 8,000 of the citys 102,000 video cameras will include the new ethnic culture recognition
According to him, the system will assist combat the formation of ethnic enclaves and prevent social tension.Kapitanov said the St
Petersburg local government bought an ethnic recognition software application license for 38.4 million rubles ($434,000) from an unknown
vendor as part of the citys Safe City program.Chinese security companies have marketed racial and ethnic profiling abilities abroad, and
monitoring research study groups have actually documented growing demand in China for facial recognition cameras that track qualities such
as skin color and ethnicity.Russias presidential Human Rights Council chief, Valery Fadeyev, informed Kommersant that he sees strategies to
present ethnicity recognition electronic cameras in St
Petersburg as degrading to human dignity.Alexandra Dokuchayeva, deputy director of the state-affiliated Institute of the Commonwealth of
Independent States NGO, warned that the relocation would only plant stress and ethnic discord.Ethically, it raises major questions about the
competence of individuals in federal government positions, Dokuchayeva said.Still, St
Petersburg officials have safeguarded the move, stating the system would help authorities predict resource needs for keeping order at mass
public occasions and enhance the implementation of volunteers and police officers who speak various languages.
