Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis said he would oppose facial recognition

Darwin Council has recently invested in new smart technology but there is one technology Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis said he would never let council use.

Darwin lord mayor Kon Vatskalis said he would totally oppose any moves to incorporate facial recognition into the Smart city technology. Picture: Justin Kennedy

FACIAL recognition will never be a part of Darwin council’s smart technology if Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis has his way, saying he “would totally” oppose any such technology brought to council.

Mr Vatskalis said while he wouldn’t support any motion through council, he had no say over other authorities, with control over the cameras given to police.

“I will oppose council to have anything to do with facial recognition. It’s not our business,” he said.

Some of the high technology installations in Darwin. Picture: Glenn Campbell

“If the police wants to do it they can do it because they’ve got law and order but council has no interest and I will be totally opposing strongly council to be involved in any facial recognition.”

Mr Vatskalis also said other jurisdictions, with similar CCTV systems, had different rules regarding facial recognition and how footage was used.

“Perth’s got 330 cameras, all with facial recognition, all operated by council. Ipswich has got 300 of them, all operated by council. Adelaide the same,” he said.

After launching at the end of May, Mr Vatskalis said it was still a few months before residents and businesses would see results.

“We’re collecting data now but we’re still needing more data in the future,” he said.

“We’ll give it three months to six months. We’ll endeavour to do it in three months but you never know what will happen.”

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The controversial project which was launched at the end of May had previously been linked to Chinese technology but Darwin chief executive Scott Waters had previously refuted the claims by a strategic think tank, that data gathered through its Smart City initiative would end up with the Chinese Government.

“That is just plain wrong,” he said.

“All technology used, including the CCTV cameras and Wi-Fi, have been endorsed by third parties, including the Northern Territory Police and Telstra.”

The technology had been developed after a number of international trips to Singapore and China to examine how other jurisdictions had used similar technology.