‘No warning’: Disturbing find in Aussie tree sparks ‘mass surveillance’ outrage

An Aussie government has been caught out pulling a sneaky move – and according to Caleb Bond, it’s a dangerous sign of things to come.

OPINION

The great allure of getting out of the city and into the natural world is disconnection.

Leave the mobile phone behind, get some sun and breathe fresh air.

It’s one of the few chances you get to feel like you are on your own and to truly reconnect with the world.

So you don’t expect to be tracked when you visit a national park – but that’s what the Victorian government is doing in the Grampians.

The public was locked out of swathes of the Grampians National Park in 2019 when the Aboriginal Heritage Act was invoked to protect sacred sites.

Rock climbing, camping and walking are all off limits in large parts of the bushland.

It is known to be one of the best rock climbing sites in the world.

But if you dare to climb those rocks, as people from all over the globe have done for years, you are now liable for a visit from the First Peoples-State Relations unit.

At least one person has been visited twice and threatened with fines of upwards of $346,000 because a vehicle registered in their name was allegedly linked to possible breaches of cultural heritage.

A camera was found in a tree in the park. Picture: ACAV/Facebook

An electronic counter was also found in this post. Picture: ACAV/Facebook

As of July this year, the maximum penalty for an individual is in excess of $355,000.

It was previously speculated that investigators may have conducted aerial searches to see whether people were flouting Aboriginal heritage rules – often in areas where there is no obvious evidence of anything that could be deemed culturally significant.

But now we know what Parks Victoria has been up to. They have been installing covert cameras up trees and hiding visitor counters in wooden posts to monitor how many people are going to off-limit areas and who they might be.

Parks Victoria says the cameras are used to make “informed decisions about resourcing, trail maintenance and conservation” and to stop illegality.

I bet they want to stop illegality – especially when those who harm Aboriginal cultural heritage can be fined more than $355,000.

There was no warning that these cameras or population counters had been installed and there is no real transparency about how the information is used – just as there is no transparency about how the decision was made to lock up huge portions of the Grampians under Aboriginal heritage.

Governments and councils should be required to disclose when they are monitoring or filming people.

It is legal – as it should be – to photograph or film people in public. But when those photographs or films are used for law enforcement or governmental purposes, we deserve to know they are being collected.

An image found on the camera. Picture: ACAV/Facebook

‘George Orwell’s 1984 was meant to be a warning, not an instruction manual’, argues Caleb Bond. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

Can we go nowhere now without being tracked?

You may say that if you commit no crime, then you have naught to worry about – but who is to say what may constitute a crime in future?

Most security cameras are currently just taking raw footage, but artificial intelligence is moving so fast that, within years, CCTV across the country could be equipped with facial recognition.

That could give governments the ability to plot your daily movements, detect your emotions and target you for whatever purpose they desire.

Don’t think it’s a joke or a conspiracy theory. The London Underground secretly trialled AI-equipped cameras between 2022 and 2023 to monitor body language, movements and behaviour in an effort to detect whether people were aggressive or could have been evading fares.

George Orwell’s 1984 was meant to be a warning, not an instruction manual.

Yet we keep marching merrily towards a world of mass surveillance where privacy is a privilege, not a right.

Much like a right to free speech, if you have no right to privacy, then you have no ability to protect rights at all.

Sure – there are different rules in public places to private places.

But how insidious must it become in public until we are all worn down enough to reject privacy altogether?

Originally published as ‘No warning’: Disturbing find in Aussie tree sparks ‘mass surveillance’ outrage