Connect with us
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=12]

International

WEF 2025: AI CEO Says Facial Recognition Will Replace Digital IDs in Smart Cities

Published

9 months ago

4 minute read

logo

By Didi Rankovic

“…you won’t need a digital identity” because “you have the facial recognition and other things built into your smart cities.”

One of the panels during last week’s World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting – “Empowering People with Digital Public Infrastructure” – saw the participation of Avathon CEO Pervinder Johar, who provided a vision of a gloomy future of “optimized” and omnipresent surveillance.

Johar, of course, would not put it quite that way. Avathon, which produces AI tech, including the surveillance kind – believes that in the next five to ten years there will be no need for digital ID since facial recognition “and other things” will be built into “smart cities.”

The panel was dedicated to digital public infrastructure (DPI) – a buzzword used by digital ID proponents like the UN, the EU, the WEF, and Bill Gates – and Johar said the financial and identity portions of digital ID will “converge” to produce the result he predicted.

This suggests that the population will be under constant surveillance and identified at all times. Johar had more “good news” – Avathon makes what it calls an industrial AI platform, a surveillance system that the CEO shared has been deployed in Round Rock High School in Texas – “for children’s safety.”

It “utilizes a school’s existing camera infrastructure to proactively detect everything from a weapon to an open door, unauthorized access, or even a fire.”

Another panelist, Hoda Al Khzaimi, Associate Vice Provost for Research Translation and Entrepreneurship at New York University Abu Dhabi Hoda Al Khzaimi, also spoke about the connection between the DPI and “smart cities.”

“Digital public infrastructures came into manifestation because governments want to make sure that they provide seamless services in the rise of smart cities,” said Al Khzaimi, at the same time effectively suggesting that “the optimal application of DPI” is pushing digital ID on citizens.

Al Khzaimi also addressed the issue of DPI data. “What’s positive is that if this data provided by the DPI infrastructure are open and in many kinds of scenarios, you have open marketplaces for these data, users themselves can nudge governments and can nudge providers of these services and to tell them what do you want, and what do you not want and control the trends of how to deploy and build for solutions,” she said.

Al Khzaimi also praised the public-private partnership on the DPI. And while acknowledging the potential for abuse (“you don’t want to subject the citizens to mass analytics if they don’t want to have this mass analytics infrastructure”) she quickly contradicted herself by saying there are cases when this should be done – such as to “analyze population data for health pandemic outbreaks.”

Kapital Co-Founder and CEO Rene Saul spoke about Mexico’s digital passport (which utilizes biometric ID verification at the borders – something Saul did not mention), which he is a holder of, as a positive example of digital ID.

After all, it saved him 35 minutes.

“I arrived to Europe for the first time, and I saw the sign with other three countries that had electronic passport. So, I saved 35 minutes just to enter Europe when it took me one hour. So, that’s one of good examples, and that, and another good example of this technology is, it opened our borders,” said Saul.

Know Your Customer (KYC) was also mentioned as helpful in developing digital services such as those used by banks. KYC itself is an invasive form of digital ID verification that incorporates document scans and biometric ID verification.
Related Topics:

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

More from this author
International / 7 hours ago

BBC uses ‘neutrality’ excuse to rebuke newscaster who objected to gender ideology

Agriculture / 7 hours ago

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s Bloodlust: Worshipping Policies While Ignoring Science

Energy / 10 hours ago

Thawing the freeze on oil and gas development in Treaty 8 territory

International

BBC uses ‘neutrality’ excuse to rebuke newscaster who objected to gender ideology

Published on November 8, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Jonathon Van Maren

Rebuking a female presenter for correcting an ideological script that says men can get pregnant isn’t ‘neutrality,’ by any stretch.

Imagine a society in which the state broadcaster demanded that the female hosts eliminate the word “women” in favor of “people” and rebuked them if their facial expressions betrayed any hit of protest on air.

Welcome to the United Kingdom in 2025. According to the BBC: “Martine Croxall broke rules over ‘pregnant people’ facial expression, BBC says.”

Martine Croxall, a BBC presenter, was introducing an interview about “research on groups most at risk during UK heatwaves,” and the teleprompter script she was reading live on BBC News Channel contained the phrase “pregnant people.”

Croxall visibly raised her eyebrows, and corrected in real-time: “Malcolm Mistry, who was involved in the research, says that the aged, pregnant people … women … and those with pre-existing health conditions need to take precautions.”

When Dr. Mistry, a professor, came on for the interview, she too referred to “pregnant women” rather than “pregnant people.”

Because a female presenter clearly objected to “women” being erased in favor of “people” for the ideological purpose of buttressing gender ideology, the BBC has now upheld “20 impartiality complaints” against Croxall. According to the BBC: “BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) said it considered her facial expression as she said this gave the ‘strong impression of expressing a personal view on a controversial matter.’”

READ: BBC rebukes newscaster for correcting ‘pregnant people’ with ‘women’ on air

In other words, as a woman, Croxall obviously objected to the implication that men can get pregnant. Croxall has a son and has thus been pregnant herself. But in our current clown world, the Executive Complaints Unit “said it considered Croxall’s facial expression laid it open to the interpretation that it ‘indicated a particular viewpoint in the controversies currently surrounding trans identity.’”

The totalitarian trans activists desperately trying to force society to play along with their delusions with force or coercion were behind the complaints, with the ECU reporting that Croxall’s facial expressions were “variously interpreted by complainants as showing disgust, ridicule, contempt, or exasperation.” In other words: Say your lines the way we gave them to you and look like you believe them, bigot.

The ECU was also concerned that those who, you know, disagree with the idea that men can get pregnant were also pleased by Croxall’s act of defiance, and that she received “congratulatory messages” on social media (including one from J.K. Rowling), which “together with the critical views expressed in the complaints to the BBC and elsewhere, tended to confirm the impression of her having expressed a personal view was widely shared across the spectrum of opinion on the issue.”

Clearly the BBC—which is desperately been trying to regain its reputation—is attempting to wave the fig leaf of “neutrality” in order to reestablish its previous bona fides. But rebuking a female presenter for correcting an ideological script and making a facial expression that appeared to indicate opposition to the idea that men can get pregnant isn’t “neutrality,” by any stretch.

Just a decade ago, no media outlet would have considered implementing gender ideology into their coverage as fact. Now presenters are expected to use fundamentally propagandistic language that frontloads the premises of activists while keeping a straight face as if both transgender ideology and observable biological reality are two perspectives deserving of equal respect and consideration.

Featured Image

Jonathon’s writings have been translated into more than six languages and in addition to LifeSiteNews, has been published in the National Post, National Review, First Things, The Federalist, The American Conservative, The Stream, the Jewish Independent, the Hamilton Spectator, Reformed Perspective Magazine, and LifeNews, among others. He is a contributing editor to The European Conservative.

Continue Reading

International

Large US naval presence in Caribbean reveals increased interest in western security

Published on November 8, 2025

By

From The Center Square

By 

As the number of suspected narcotic transport boats destroyed by the U.S. military grows, so does the number of naval vessels in the Caribbean.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced on social media Thursday evening that U.S. forces carried out their 17th strike on alleged drug boats, killing three “male narco-terrorists” in the targeted operation.

President Donald Trump has made it clear that his administration’s intent to target narco-terrorists in the region to help curb the flow of drugs into the country.

Last month, it was announced that the newest and largest U.S. Navy Aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, and its strike group would be transiting to the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility in the Caribbean.

Ahead of the Ford’s arrival, several naval ships are already in the region, including the USS Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group, according to the U.S. Naval Institute—the Iwo Jima, a Wasp-class amphibious ship, among the larger classes of ships in the Navy.

The Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group deployed in August, carrying over 4,500 sailors and Marines, according to the Department of War. The group includes the Iwo Jima, USS Fort Lauderdale, USS San Antonio, and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit.

As of early this week, the USNI reported that, in addition to the group, three Navy guided-missile destroyers are operating in the Caribbean, including the USS Jason Dunham, USS Gravely, and USS Stockdale. In addition, USNI reported the USS Lake Erie (CG-70) and the USS Wichita (LCS-13) are operating in the Caribbean.

The buildup of navy ships in the region points to the administration’s commitment to prioritizing targeting narco-terrorists. Still, it could also signal the U.S. focusing on potential adversarial threats in Latin America.

Hegseth told The Center Square last month at an event in the White House that the Department of War is keeping its eyes on adversaries in the region after TCS asked the secretary and the president if they had plans to expand U.S. Naval operations in Puerto Rico, specifically Roosevelt Roads, a Navy base closed in 2004.

“We’re familiar with the location that you’re referring to, and we will make sure that we’re properly placed in order to deal with the contingency we’re dealing with there, and also any ways in which other countries would attempt to be involved also, so we can walk and chew gum. We’re definitely keeping our eyes on near peer adversaries at the same time,” Hegseth told TCS.

The secretary’s response cemented the administration’s “America first” policy, which is beginning to shift focus to its “own backyard.”

“But we think sending a message on these cartels, these narco-terrorists, is an important, important inside our hemisphere, which for far too long other presidents, as the president pointed out, they’ve ignored our own backyard and allowed other countries to increase their influence here, which only threatens the American people. We’re changing that,” Hegseth concluded.

The naval buildup in the region could highlight concerns in recent years that Venezuela, under the dictatorship of socialist Nicolas Maduro, has aligned the country with American adversaries, such as Russia, China and Iran.

In 2022, Venezuela hosted military drills with countries including Russia, China and Iran.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies warns that Latin America is ripe for U.S. adversarial influences.

“While Western observers have focused their attention on joint connivances of Russia and Iran in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and the Middle East, where Russo-Iranian military-security operations directly affect U.S. and European interests, the Western Hemisphere is not isolated from the two countries’ quests for global influence. In fact, in many ways it is an essential piece of the puzzle. First, both Iran and Russia perceive Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) as a fertile ground for exploiting popular resentment vis-à-vis the United States and the ‘collective West,’ which they – rather successfully – harness to advance their view of a multipolar world,” according to CSIS.

The group cites sanctions from the West, which are growing in large part due to Russia’s ongoing offensive in Ukraine.

“Second, LAC partners could prove instrumental in offsetting the impacts of Western sanctions against Moscow and Tehran by mitigating their diplomatic and economic isolation. Finally, certain LAC countries could also serve as less scrutinized partners for further developing Russo-Iranian warfare capabilities or cooperation, sheltering mercenaries or militias – such as Hezbollah – and acting as vectors for ‘horizontal escalation’ of conflicts in which Russia and Iran are currently involved,” the group added.

Continue Reading

Trending

X