AUSTRALIA: Gay Winner Of Big Brother Proposes To Boyfriend During Finale

And the audience goes WILD!

(Via Towleroad)

The Minority Report Comes True

The FBI is launching a national network of face-recognition technology that will identify individuals from images culled via a massive network of security cameras. Even your Facebook page photo can then be used to match your name to your presence wherever the cameras find you.

The technology will be used for identifying fugitives, missing persons and unknown persons of interest; tracking subject movements to/from critical events; conducting automated surveillance at lookout locations (like Occupy Wall St. congregations); identifying subjects in public datasets (e.g. Facebook); and verifying mug shots against National Criminal Information Center (NCIC) records. The system has privacy advocates very concerned about the "faces in the crowd" because anyone in public could be placed in a federal database or subjected to warrantless real-time surveillance. The FBI already has facial recognition software installed at DMVs in at least 27 states, so the FBI can potentially match any citizen's with their ID, license or passport photos in real time. "The combination of face recognition, social networks data and data mining can significantly undermine our current notions and expectations of privacy and anonymity," Carnegie Mellon University professor Alessandro Acquisti told the subcommittee.

California's Lottery Cam Is Watching You

Your dream of changing your name and vanishing into the ether with your winnings won't happen in California, where lottery officials have published surveillance video of a big winner checking his ticket.

"We see this as an integrity and transparency issue," said Russ Lopez, California Lottery Deputy Director of Corporate Communications, in a statement. “The California Lottery truly believes that when a person buys a lottery ticket with the hope and prayer of changing their lives, we should do all we can to connect them with their winnings. We believe this effort will make a lot of Californians very happy.”

Blogger Aksarbent is not amused.

What's really happening isn't a "transparency issue," obviously, but a quasi-government agency employing tabloid journalism tactics to further publicize and promote its ultra-long-shot gambling product, which Warren Buffett once called "a tax on the stupid." So know this if you buy a winning lottery ticket in California: You may wish to remain anonymous while getting your affairs in order and consulting with attorneys (and perhaps having an attorney claim the ticket for your trust so that every grasping friend and relative and burglar and stalker and grifter won't come after you) but the California Lottery may decide to veto your sensible choice and release security camera footage of you to the entire world, as if you were a bank robber.

Nicotine Test For Hospital Employees

If you want to get a job at Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania, you'll have to submit to a test for nicotine use. If you test positive, you don't get the job.

"This is just the next step in creating a tobacco-free environment and it's just an effort to focus on the well-being of our employees," said Geisinger spokeswoman Marcy Marshall. All Geisinger facilities have been tobacco-free since 2007. Ms. Marshall said Geisinger's new policy was a year in the making, and is modeled after one established at The Cleveland Clinic. She said some of the staff understand why Geisinger is taking a more aggressive stance on tobacco use, and some even welcome the new policy. There are others, though, who are worried. "I'm sure what's going through their minds is, 'How is this going to affect me down the line?'" Ms. Marshall said.

Next up: a test for evidence of french fries.

OnStar Is Always Watching You

Even when you stop paying them.

Navigation-and-emergency-services company OnStar is notifying its six million account holders that it will keep a complete accounting of the speed and location of OnStar-equipped vehicles, even for drivers who discontinue monthly service. OnStar began e-mailing customers Monday about its update to the privacy policy, which grants OnStar the right to sell that GPS-derived data in an anonymized format. Adam Denison, a spokesman for the General Motors subsidiary, said OnStar does not currently sell customer data, but it reserves that right. He said both the new and old privacy policies allow OnStar to chronicle a vehicle’s every movement and its speed, though it’s not clear where that’s stated in the old policy.

It's a literal eye in the sky.

DNA Spray

A business district in Amsterdam has begun using "DNA spray," an adhesive mist triggered by store clerks, motion detectors, or by remote camera surveillance operators during a robbery or holdup. Chemical markers injected into the mist identify the precise time and location of the incident.

“The procedure is simple: during a holdup a nebula of invisible liquid with a synthetic DNA code is spread in the space. the liquid attaches itself to the clothes and skin of the perpetrator and cannot simply be washed off. DNA-spray is practically invisible to the human eye, but lights up under UV-light. Suspects with traces of DNA-spray are easily traceable to the scene of the crime for the police.”

The above-linked Dutch blogger worries that DNA spray could be used by governments to identify the attendees at political protests.

Big Brother: School Took Thousands Of Photos Inside Students' Homes

Remember the Pennsylvania high school accused of spying on its students via their their laptop webcams?

Student Blake Robbins says Lower Merion School District officials secretly activated the webcams and captured him sleeping in bed and partly undressed. They say the school also took screen shots of instant messages he exchanged with friends. And his lawyer says they have evidence the school captured thousands of screenshots and webcam images, many taken inside students' homes. The district admits it made mistakes in activating the webcams to locate missing laptops. But officials insist they have no evidence employees used the software program improperly.

Lawyers from both sides are meeting today.

The Naugle Effect

In an effort to stem public sex on the beach, officials in Martin County, Florida are considering installing "talking" motion-detecting surveillance cameras. Upon detecting movement, the cameras would flash a bright light and play a pre-recorded announcement that the area was under surveillance. Recording would begin 30 seconds later. Martin County arrested six men in an undercover beach sex sting during the summer.

Perhaps mindful of the beach sex debacle in nearby Fort Lauderdale, Martin County's tourism head Terry Monagan says the cameras would scare off tourists and may constitute invasion of privacy. Monagan: "My first reaction is that sounds pretty intrusive."