Singapore takes another step in population control. The city-state sometimes presented as a laboratory at the forefront of urban technologies is experimenting with new patrolling robots.
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The mission of these patrolling robots is to detect and reprimand unwanted social behavior. Smoking in an unauthorized place, parking your bike improperly, being grouped together with more than 5 or not respecting the social distances imposed by the pandemic … This is what earned you a warning from Xavier, since that is the name of this new one. robot. Patroller on four wheels, equipped with seven cameras that give him a 360-degree view, even at night, Xavier sends, if he spots undesirable behavior, real-time alerts to the police command and control center. Because it is indeed an auxiliary of the security forces that it is. Tested in a shopping center and a residence for the elderly, Xavier notably ordered retirees who were quietly observing a game of chess to respect the required distance meter.
An additional intrusion into the privacy of Singaporeans who are already moving under the lens of some 90,000 surveillance cameras – a number expected to double by 2030 – and facial recognition systems placed in streetlights. Innovations which then had the success we know in our Western cities. Singapore had already tested the robot dog, deployed in parks during the pandemic, to ensure that health rules were respected. Xavier is even more sophisticated. The images it sends in a continuous stream can trigger a police intervention. Xavier is also presented as the answer to the lack of personnel in the police for the patrols. Very useful in particular, specifies its manufacturer, to track down illegal street vendors.
A country where press freedom is a very relative notion. Singapore is 160th place (out of 180) in the Reporters Without Borders ranking on press freedom, behind Sudan and just ahead of Somalia. And security laws are piling up. This week again, the Parliament voted a very controversial text against the “foreign interference” aiming in fact to control the Internet and the social networks, considered as means of subversion. The notion of “foreign interference” is vague enough to further control the media, intellectuals and opposition. For example, the law authorizes the government to force access providers to give information about their users, it targets political figures. The only intention to publish can lead to conviction. The penalties incurred go as far as imprisonment and heavy fines.
We prefer to retain another current trend in Singapore on social networks: influencer animals. Dogs, cats more and more in vogue since the pandemic and the rise of online commerce. Some are followed by tens of thousands of subscribers.