Sci-Tech News
Pentagon Tool Records User's Every Sense
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Coming to you soon from the Pentagon: the diary to end all diaries - a multimedia, digital record of everywhere you go and everything you see, hear, read, say and touch.
Known as LifeLog, the project has been put out for contractor bids by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the agency that helped build the Internet and that is now developing the next generation of anti-terrorism tools.
The agency doesn't consider LifeLog an anti-terrorism system, but rather a tool to capture "one person's experience in and interactions with the world" through a camera, microphone and sensors worn by the user. Everything from heartbeats to travel to Internet chatting would be recorded.
The goal is to create breakthrough software that helps analyze behavior, habits and routines, according to Pentagon documents reviewed by The Associated Press. The products of the unclassified project would be available to both the private sector and other government agencies - a concern to privacy advocates.
While DARPA says LifeLog is intended for users who give their consent to be monitored, some are dubious that the project has military application and would instead be used for domestic spying - something DARPA denies.
(Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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