Blacklisted News

According to an article in Muckrock, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) doesn’t want the public to know about their ‘secret’ facial recognition cameras.

Police in Minneapolis are going to great lengths, to keep the public from discovering how they’re being spied on.

Last weekend, Tony Webster was notified that the HCSO was asking the Supreme Court to postpone the release of their facial recognition documents.

“I sent the [FOI] request to a bunch of different agencies in the Twin Cities metro area and the state police, and for the most part none of them had any problem complying with the request in a proper manner. They provided the documents and emails and it was really no big deal,” he says. All except for the HCSO, in the county which seats Minneapolis and thus the most populous in the state.

The Star Tribune revealed that the HCSO has been secretly using facial recognition cameras since 2013.

Is DHS and law enforcement using the 2018 Superbowl as an excuse to create a ‘secret’ facial recognition system?

According to another article written by Webster, Minnesota law enforcement are using Cognitec and Securonet to spy on everyone.

In a 2015 email, an HCSO employee wrote, “…we need to hook up Securonet with Cognitec and their VideoScan product.”

Cognitec’s FaceVACS system specializes in identifying people in real-time.

“FaceVACS-VideoScan detects and identifies persons of interest in real-time while computing demographic and behavioral data…”  FaceVACS can also detect frequent visitors.

Earlier this year, I warned everyone that facial recognition cameras do more than just identify people, they detect a person’s gender, age, ethnicity and much more.

Securonet let’s police use CCTV cameras to spy on everyone. Last year, I wrote a four-part series warning everyone that police are using private CCTV cameras to spy on the public.

The above admission by Securonet should dispel any doubts about police using private CCTV cameras to spy on the public. (Law enforcement also uses GenICam software to spy on the public.)

For months, the HCSO has denied Webster’s FOI requests, claiming it was too burdensome and more.

But I’ve never, seen such a brazen and disgusting argument by law enforcement to obfuscate government spying.

The HCSO has decided to argue that because Webster asked for a keyword search, the request wasn’t valid because they don’t store emails by “words in the English dictionary.” “Which is absurd right?” says Webster.

For more information about police using CCTV cameras to spy on the public read Cognitec’s Whitepaper, “The Advantages of Industrial Cameras for Face Recognition Applications.”

Cognitec reveals, how retail stores are using ‘industrial’ facial recognition cameras.