Tag: australia

Darwin council claims new CCTV cameras “will not use facial recognition”

Internet of Things (IoT)

Darwin council insists that the new set of cameras in the Central Business District will not employ facial recognition until the technology is more carefully considered.

The 138 cameras were installed as part of the Switching On Darwin project, which also provides public wifi, new lighting, and traffic sensors. Although the cameras do have facial recognition hardware in them, the city does not plan to utilize it at this time.

However, council general manager Josh Sattler stated that although the city will not employ the technology, “requests coming from a state or federal agency” will “need to be complied with.” 

Install first, question later

Of the 81 grants offered by Australia’s Smart Cities and Suburbs program, only the Darwin proposal included funding for facial recognition technology. The Darwin council’s addition of the technology was done without public consultation. An estimated six month study by an outside consultant agency began in August.

Concerns with facial recognition

Many question the council’s decision to include a technology that will supposedly not be employed. Julia Powles, researcher and associate professor at the University of Western Australia, questions “the real reason why [the technologies] were sought in the first place”, adding “it’s like buying a supercomputer and then saying you’re just going to surf the web and check emails.”

Security of camera feeds also stands out as a major concern. Elise Thomas from the International Cyber Policy Centre, offered a warning along these lines:

“The ways in which a lot of these projects are being implemented at the level of local councils, particularly from a cyber-security perspective, those councils may not necessarily have the resources to ensure that their systems are secure”

Internet connected devices are notoriously vulnerable to security breaches. Any gateway into a network-connected device can open doors to the entire network. Depending on the type of access provided, compromised devices can be mined for data, or even remotely controlled by outside parties.

AirAsia X Places Order for 42 Airbus Planes

Asia, Australia, Oceania, South East Asia, UncategorizedNo Comments

AirAisa X has closed a deal with Airbus for 42 new aircraft. Twelve A330-900 and thirty A321XLR are set to bolster the trans-Asian airline’s already formidable presence in the affordable air travel market. 

The Airline

AirAsiaX is, unsurprisingly, a sister company of AirAsia, the largest Asian international carrier. Based in Malaysia, AirAsia runs a myriad of routes between many nearby Asian (especially Southeast Asian) cities. AirAsiaX focuses on long distance routes, especially between Asia, Australia, and the United States. Its first route, commenced in 2007, was between Kuala Lumpur and the Australian Gold Coast. It tends to use peripheral airports rather than central ones to keep ticket prices down; in 2018, it swapped its KL-Melbourne route for nearby Avalon Airport.

The Aircrafts

The A330-900 is an extended fuselage version of the Airbus A330neo.  It can seat up to 300 passengers in a three-class layout; that number rises to 440 if an airline choses to forgo luxury seating options. Its range of 13,400km is sufficient for most intercontinental routes, with the exception of some trans-Pacific flights.

The A321XLR is the newest adaptation of the A321neo, the world’s best-selling single aisle aircraft. It has been refined to make its range “Xtra Long”, and can now travel up to 8500km. Smaller bodied planes better accommodate smaller airports; the A321XLR is a popular choice for smaller regional airlines. For AirAsiaX, the more efficient, but still lower passenger capacity model will enable the opening and continuation of less-traveled routes such as India-Europe and China-Australia, according to the Airbus website.