I get quite paranoid about the whole Big Brother thing, - not the TV programme demonstrating how unprogressive some members of the human race are, although this does terrify me - it’s the idea that someone’s watching you that gets me. It’s fair to say that most people like to celebrate the new year in style, and Chinese police are trying out a new trend: facial recognition glasses. My instant reaction was something along the lines of “what the actual fuck!”, but I kinda calmed down after realising there is a bit of method in the madness. The idea behind this new scheme is to monitor travellers and migrants coming into China’s city train stations, like in Zhengzhou. Donning a Keanu Reeves circa The Matrix look, Chinese police wearing the sunglasses will be able to scan people’s faces which will link in to police databases enabling access to anyone’s personal details: name, address, criminal profile etc. Despite the minor issues with invading someone’s privacy, throughout the influx of people coming into Zhengzhou police have managed to capture wanted suspects linked to major crimes. So what’s the issue? As always your average person, like myself, doesn’t really have a say in the matter and there’s the issue of what governments do with the data collected from police (now including disguised everyday wear). Where’s the line? Where’s the consent? Then again this is where laws differ, particularly between the East and the West, as the Chinese state seems to be less of a democracy. It came to my attention that UK police are now trying out a new ‘stop and scan’ initiative. Northern bobbies have now been equipped with fingerprint scanners which they can use on a suspect they believe could be affiliated with a crime. As a generally law abiding citizen this doesn’t rattle my cage too much, it’s more that it parallels New York’s ‘stop and frisk’ regime, - it’s riddled with moral and legal implications, especially with racial profiling. In the UK police are hoping the scanners will make checks more efficient by being able to scan finger prints on the beat, as opposed to back at the station. I get the speed appeal, but meanwhile back in the West privacy issues, which tie in with consent, bring this new initiative into very grey areas.