FAST pre-crime unit is used to collect information such as gender, age, and ethnicity
© Amblin Entertainment
Someone call Tom Cruise, because "Minority Report" is taking a leap from fiction to reality -- except the real version, which is currently being tested by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, doesn't depend on human psychics called precogs, but rather a screening facility with set algorithms.
This new "pre-crime" detection facility was discovered via a June 2010 DHS document that was acquired by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). The document states that
information is currently collected and retained on "members of the public" as part of the pre-crime system, which is called Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST).
FAST is made up of algorithms that use factors including gender, age, ethnicity, heart rate, body movements, occupation, voice pitch changes, body heat fluctuations and breathing patterns to identify clues as to whether the individual(s) will commit a crime in the future.
The idea behind FAST is to prevent crimes from happening before individuals even have a chance to commit them based on the factors listed above. It is able to do this through the use of sensors that collect audio recordings, video images and
psychophysiological measurements.
Comment: While we are told "there are no plans for acquiring or deploying this type of technology at this time," you've got to wonder if the technology hasn't already been applied with earlier versions of similar technology to thousands of citizens in the US and abroad. With the Western world leading the rest of the world towards a technological cage, how much longer long can the psychopaths convince the normals that what they do to protect us is really so?
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe