Don't ask Kevin Haggerty about 1984. Or The Handmaid's Tale.
The University of Alberta professor of criminology and sociology studies surveillance for a living, so he's not one to indulge in dystopian fantasies.
Over the past quarter-century, Haggerty has studied the steady rise of cameras, smart devices, drones and facial recognition. Technology has coalesced into a network system capable of repressing ethnic minorities, as is occurring with the Uighur Muslim minority in northwest China.
"Maybe this wasn't planned, but it was foreseeable," Haggerty said. "For somebody in my world, who's been studying surveillance for 25 years, this was screamingly predictable."
Read the full article on folio.ca