AXIS 4: CITIZENSHIP AND VIRTUAL WORLDS TOPIC: Crime in the Digital Age. QUESTION: How are new technologies helping to solve crimes? YOUR MISSION : Debate whether or not online personal data should be used by the police. Introduction: Watch individually and fill in the information sheet. Then, appoint a speaker who will account for your findings. What type of video is it? The document is an extract of a TV show. More precisely an interview between two journalists and an editor in chief. What type of technologies are mentioned? drones, body cameras, face recognition software, and tattoo recognition. Who is Nicolas Townsend? an editor in chief of Wired magazine. Which questions do the journalists ask? How good are these technologies? question about drones Why would they care about tattoos? Are the images stored? Is it only face recognition? question about image collecting What are the different uses of the technologies mentioned? Rescue people, watch crowds, gather information, tracking suspects, identifying gang members thanks to their tattoos, select images for proof, find terrorists, find hostages. Are there any dangers evoked? abusive use of technologies by the police in order to recognize people. It could take your privacy away. With your group: recap the positive and negative aspects of the technologies mentioned. Positive aspects negative aspects police -> easier to identify suspects drones allow to access difficult places and to track suspects cameras allow protecting policemen it keeps the population safe The 4th amendment is against unreasonable searches and data collecting could be against that. Reduced privacy and freedom of the people. We don’t know where the images are going. Analyse (describe/say what you understand ) the mural by Banksy. How does it illustrate the video ? The document is a piece of Street Art, more precisely a mural by Banksy. He is a famous anonymous artist who made murals in the whole world. He denounces society facts. The artist has painted a message on: Nation under CCTV. It is related to surveillance. We can say it is a message against surveillance on a wall, as there are CCTV cameras next to the mural. He may want to say that people are not free in society, that they are being watched. We can see the painter and a policeman watching him, with his dog next to him. The policeman is taking pictures of the painter while the camera is filming the street and the people who are watching. Maybe Banksy wants to point out that cameras are useless in the street. He might also mean that cameras are used for the wrong reasons : they are filming the street but not the man doing something wrong. The police are relying on the camera and not doing their job. It illustrates the wrong uses of the cameras in the street. The video and the mural are both talking about surveillance and the use of data by the government. How / To what extent does it illustrate… It does because… (good illustration) It doesn’t because… (not good illustration) they both talk about the police they both talk about cameras and surveillance they both talk about new technology they both mention the negative aspects the crime is not filmed by the camera. the policeman is not useful for the protection of society the artist uses illegal art for his message. only the video is about drones the mural only shows the negative aspects the picture talks about spying and it is not efficient/inefficient but the video is about protection. Do you agree with the quote “nation under CCTV”? Develop. YES NO it can help watch the crowd in case they do something wrong. not used in an abusive way in France there are not many cameras in France, only in front of important buildings or ATMs. there are also cameras in public spaces, stores. There are many we can’t see Prepare to debate the question : Are new technologies a way to keep people safe or a breach of privacy? Keeps people safe breach of privacy actually, they are only there for support, not to replace policemen. the police network is very safe, it is unlikely that criminals will hack it. the police are professionals about it, we only hear about the criminals, not innocent people. if we stopped cameras, criminal activities would go way beyond and it would be more dangerous. the cameras are mostly used for important buildings, to keep important people safe. cameras can’t run after a thief: they are not people and don’t have real contact with victims. data can be collected and hacked by careless or malevolent people. drones can be attacked by birds trained criminals videos can be used out of context The government has so much information about us that it could be dangerous if we had a totalitarian regime. We are spied on even if we do nothing wrong, there is nothing we can do without being watched. the police would have evidence to blackmail people. Grammar : Modals -> Shine Bright p 265-266 = optional work exercices. LESSON 1: Sherlock 2.0 How has the iconic detective Sherlock Holmes adapted his investigative techniques? 1 - Read the article. Introduction: The document is an article written on August 2nd, 2012 by Jimmy Stamps, on the website smithonianmag.com (. = dot). The article is about a new TV show about Sherlock Holmes, which is broadcast by the BBC. (Verbe irrégulier : broadcast aux 3 formes) A- How has the BBC’s “Sherlock” adapted the iconic detective? -> present the original character. The original character is a fictional character named Sherlock Holmes. He was created by Arthur Conan Doyle and he was a consulting detective. We know that he is a private investigator with a very good memory. He is also independent and eccentric. He is elegant. He lives a 221B Baker Street, in London during the Victorian period. His favourite object is a magnifying glass. -> which changes have been made? Now, instead of his magnifying glass, he uses his mobile phone. He can conduct web searches to find information. The story doesn’t take place in Victorian England any longer, but in 2012 (time of the article) -> which traits have been kept? He still has his personal lab and conducts his own experiments. He is still a solitary character and doesn’t work for the police. He still has social quirks and personal idiosyncrasies, so his personality is the same. B- What role does Sherlock’s mobile phone play and why is this important to the viewers? The viewers take part in the investigation. It makes Holmes access to data easily and the viewers follow the searches thanks to graphics added to the image. -> would you say the phone is a character? The phone is like a character because it is very important for Sherlock. At least, it is an essential tool for the detective and the story. The phone seems to replace Watson as a new character: in the original story, Watson is Holmes’ mate and he helps him with his investigations. A character has a voice and a personality. The phone doesn’t have a personality but we could say it has a voice because we can see the answers on the screen. -> how is the importance of the device presented on screen? It allows the viewer to follow Sherlock’s investigation and understand what he is doing. We follow what’s on his mind. C- Explain the following sentence in order to sum up the article : “Today, we all have access to unimaginable amounts of data, but Sherlock's genius is in how he uses that information” l 37-39. Everybody can find a very large quantity of information on the internet. However, to make sense of the information, one has to use their brain. Only the use of people’s knowledge and intelligence can help them avoid fake information/ news. Added to this, even with a lot of data, only the human brain can establish links and solve a mystery. Finally, it also raises the question of privacy. Sherlock Holmes uses his genius and data to solve crimes, but considering the amount of information, a malevolent genius could use the information for darker purposes/goals. It is a good summary of the text because it reminds us that the internet is just a tool. It is nothing without the human brain.