captioning sponsored by wnet >> senivasan: on this editio for saturday, july 27: police and protesters clash in hong kong. in our signature segment: a face off overacial recognition technology in great britain. and a new multimedia project tells tales from the congo. next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwar. sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the cheryl and philip milstein family. lthe j.p.b. foundation. rosalind p. , in memory of george o'neil.

barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting. a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contrutions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new yoen, hari sasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening and thank you for joining us tensions in hong kong continue to rise. last weekend mob attacked pro democracy protesters. today those protesters went back to that neigorhood and clashed with police. riot police fired tear gas and rubber bulletsnd blocked a crowd of black shirted demonstrators from marching into the area. the police did not grant permission for this march.

last sunday a group of men i white shirts, appeared to target and beat pro-democracy passengers as wells commuters at a train station. police have arrested 12 people y far in that attack and some of them have links to local gangs. but today's anti-government potesters criticized both the mob attack and tice. e are against the violen of the hong kong police and the cooperation between them and the gangs, yuen long local gangs, they are using violence to attack locals in hong kong. >> sreenivasan: authorities say at least 17 people were injured in today's demonstration, including some who whoe italized. since early june, hundreds of thousa demonstrated against the beijing-backed government and a now-suspended extradition bill. st'll have more on the pro in hong kong later in the program. two people were killed and more

than a dozen others njured after a balcony inside a nightclub in south korea collapsed overnight. the injud included four american water polo players and five other athtes from around the world who were in south korea to compete in the world aquatics championships. none of the injured e e believed to life-threatening condition. police detained one of the night clubs co-owners to investigate whetr or not the internal balcony was an approved stcture. clashedow today, polic with thousands of demonstrators over the exclusion of opposition candidates for city council. more than 1,000 demonstrators were arrested according to moscow police. media outlets broadcasting the protests were poso raided by ce. election authorities say they are barring some candidates from running for allegedly having insufficient signatures nominating petitions. the moscow city council is controlled by a pro-kremlin party, but all of its 45 seats are open in a vote set for septemr 8. recovery operations continued today for victims after a ship carrying migrants capsized off

the coast of libya on thursday. at least2 bodies have been recovered according to the red crescent and an estimated 115 others who were atteting to reach europe are still missing and presumed dead.io the united n says the accident is "the worst mediterranean tragedy of thisye ." more than 1,000 people were rescued from a train trapped in monsoon flood waters near mbai, india last night. authorities say high water stranded the train. members of india's air force, vy, and national disaster response fce used helicopters, boats, and diving teams to rescue the trapped passengers. there were no juries reported, but monsoon flooding in south asia has killed more than 600 people in recent weeks for the latest developments on the protests in hong kong, visit pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: as we reported earlier, protesters were again out on the streets of hong kong today.

amid the familiar scenes of tear gas, batons and covered faces, there's a new focus on the waye authorities ing technology to identify and track protesters. for more, "new york times" reporter paul mozur joins us now via skype from shanghai. spaul, it looks like ther almost a cat-and-mouse game using facial recognition on both sides. >> yeah, that's right. so basically, what we've seen is, as the protests have gone on and police and hong kongers continue to sq re off week after week, the face has become poaponized, and identity itself, in a way, is weazed. you know, protesters will go out and police will try to captureei images on video, and then go back and identify them via all the social media and onl, e, you knterials that are out there, and then vice versa.ic we saw the pactually take their badges off, and so now protesters are doing the same tr the police, whthey're trying to go back and use social media, figure out which police are doing what, you know. >> sreenivasan: so why are the police taking their identity badges off? i'm sure that the protesters are concerned that that leaves them unaccountable.

but what's their fear? what's their concern? >> right, so their fear partially is, you know, getting hiby protesters later. but also, there's this bief that they don't have to do it by law. and so, you know, as the violence has sort of ratchetedup the idea is just that they're trying to escape that sort of countability. one protester in particular, this guy colin chung that we found, created a facial recognition tool to try to identify police. and he didn't actuallye elease oduct, but he says, because of that, police actually targeted him.wh an they did, and it's really fascinating, as they as they grabbed him, they needed access to his phone, and so they tried to actually force his face in front of his phone to use the phone's facial recognition function to get it to unlock. i mean, he had actually been able to quickly disable that as was being tackled, but shows you how there's all these different ways, our biometric data has become so key to technology. it's becoming sort of weaponized in all these different sort of forms. >> sreenivasan: in a way, paul, it seems that this concern that protesters have ov facial recognition ties right back into the heart of why they're

presting in the first plac >> exactly. so, over the past few years in china, we've seen this incredible, billions of dorears spent oning probably the most sophisticated surveillance ofstem in the world. and that's on touge internet controls that prevent information from flowing around china. and so the fear is tha know, basically, hong kong could stt to become like china. that that this sort of stern and ingressive tone that the police in hong kong areg, is stting to look a little bi like what happens in china, where peoplere grabbed for their behaviors online, where people are arrested based on what they've said. so there's real fear there. and as this new technology comes in, you knowthe next level, the idea that, you know, you're facing your identity itself, something you can't hide on the st.ets, could give you away it's really palpable here, and symbol last week where, in front of a chinese government office in hong kong, protesters spray- painted the lens of the cctv cameras in front of the offices black. and i felt like that sort ofr- stood that was a very meaningful moment, because it showed that they're sort of

rejecting that vision and that kind of idea of how technology should be used in the future. and what we're seeing, you know, in general in china today, is lyhappening sort of consta >> sreenivasan: all right. paul mozur of the "new york times" joining us via skype from shanghai, thanks so much. >> thank >> sreenivasan: china's usof facial recognition to identify protesters in hong kong, and asn a police toohe mainland, is growing. but, it is by far not the only country. companies and authorities are using it more often in the united states as well. inis week, three democratic members of congresoduced the no biometric barriers act, ich would ban facial recognition software in public housing. san fransco banned facial recognition technology used by the city police and other agencies this past may. the british are also concerned, and engaged in a simar debate. newshour weekend special correspondent malcolm brabant reports from south wales.te

>> repor families heading for the waterfront at swansea in south waledidn't take much notice of a police van parked on the grass, but officers inside were paying extremely close attention to everyone passing by. is was the latest test of controversial facial recognition cameras, scanning the crowds to check if anyone matched images of suspects on policed lists.io the public rea >> it's a little bit invasive, because i wasn't aware of it. so if i'm thinking about it, then it's what makes me feel a little bit awkward. a i think it's fine as lo you've got nothing to hide. no problem with it, really. if there looking for somebody, like a terrorist or something like that, it's going to be easier to find them in a crowd. >> i think it depends which side of the line legality that you sit. if you do shady things, then obviously, you would not want that to happen, but if you sit my side of the legal line, which is the honest side, then i don't think it'll ever be used. >> this isn't just about havin your image captured in the way

that we all do everyda cctv. >> reporter: ed bridges, an office worker and former local politician in south wales, has filed a suit against the region's police, challenging facial recognition'shiegality. >> tis about actual unique data, that is unique to you. and once the state has that, i s think uld all be worried about how they will control and manage that data. >> reporter: bridges sued after he was filmed participating in a demonstration against the arms trade. >> it's become pretty apparent that the fundamental issue is that the technology has beenr developed quican the law has been able to keep up with it. at the very least, i think what we can expect to see from this is the law being forced to catch up so, as a m there will be much tougher regulation and much clearer guidance about how facial recognition technology is used. >> reporter:outh wales police rejected our requests for an interview, but referred us toan its youtube l and statements in support of the technology from the deputy chi constable richard lewis. >> as the technology evolves, and it is doing so at present at

an incredible rate, we will need to adapt with it, and the way we inlice to assure we remain effective at preveand reducing crime. facial recognition technology will enable us to search, scan, nitor images and video, a range of offender databases, leading to faster and more accurate identification of persons of interest allowing us to build a better picture ofth r movements and whereabouts, as well as enabling direct intervention, and potentially arrest. >> reporter: south wales may be continuing its facial recognition tests, but other forces across the u.k. have suspended theirs, pending the outcome of the lawsuit. in lonn, the metropolitan police have been testing a system made by the japanese company n.e.c. but, a recent independent study into those tes found that it wrongly identified innocent people as criminals four out of every five cases. >> in ideal conditions, it has proven tbe quite effective. the problem is, the real world and the world outside is not an ideal condition. lighting changes, people don't

look directly at cameras, people look in profile and so on. >> reporter: the report's co- author, criminologisprofessor pete fussey, has raised concerns about potential miscarriages of justice. >> there's a real mess in termst of the reguly landscape, and that needs to be resolved. the reason for that is it biometrically processes people's data as they pass by, it linkss it to databad so on. so because it's more intrusive, therefore you haer to have a hitandard of oversight, you have to have a higher standard of authorization. >> reporte this is footage of the metropolitan police testing the technology during london's annual notting hilsecarnival. or officers said they were disappointed by what they termee thtive and unbalanced tone of professor fussey's report, and declared that facial recognition had the potential to help officers locate criminals s wanted fious and violent offences, and the exploitation of children. but u.k. human rights groups like liberty believe the

technology should be banned. >> facial recognition has no place on our streets. it's feeding into a wib of surveillance that the police and the state might use against us, and it's mass surveillance on an enormous scale. this technology is enormously dangerous to modern democracy. >> reporter: hannah couchman is liberty's lead spokeswoman on facial recognition. >> it's very difficult to understand what the outer unds of this technology would be. it poses a real threat to our rights and our ability to live in a society where we feel free to move around and are protected from state power. >> and what's happened is the privacy lobby has taken the statistics and they've skewedem to create a narrative in the media, which is a misleading narrative. >> reporter: zak doffman heads a company, digital barriers, specializing in facial recognition. >> what isn't up for debate is doether or not the technology works, because i work. it is incredibly accurate. it's significantly more accurate at recognizing people from a large watch list thaa human being ever could be, for example. >> reporter: doffman says although facial recognition technology is far superior to standard cctv cameras, it still

needs a helping hand. >> if you put po imagery into a database, then that will misidentify against lots of people, because the computer can't work it out, any me than if i gave you a grainy black and white photo and asked you to go out in the str somebody, you'd be picking out all kinds of people. the computer will do the same thing.ee so youto be very clear that the imagery you use in your system against which to recognize people is of high quality. and customers, law enforcement agencies, are startingo better understand that now. >> rorter: andy trotter, the former head of britain's transport police, says officersl need all the hp they can get to hunt down terrorists. >> human interacon doesn't always work well. the number of people involved in tracking one person could range between 40 to 60 police officers or other operators, and then you could be unsuccessful. >> reporter: this is the immediate aftermath of the june 2017 london bridge attack in which three islamists drove a van into pedestrians, then leap and began stabbing passersby. eight people were killed.

andy trotter says cases like this offer justification for facial recogniti. >> here in london, we've had the london bridge attack, thebr westminstege attack. we've also had in manchester, the arena attack there, with many, many people killed and injured. the suspects involved in that, the people who were guilty of those offenses, we often known by the authorities. had they been in some database, had they been picked up by cameras beforehand, we may have been able to prevent atrocities. and that would definitely be a price worth paying. >> reporter: britain's current g conservatiernment is very keen for the police and security services to add facialit recon technology to their armories. ministers say they're awarnsof the concnd they understand the need for maintnfning public ence and trust, and they've given assurances to iament that the governme is urgently reviewing the legal environment in which facial recoition technology exists. despite the government's positionsome conservative m.p.s are calling for police use of all facial recognition to be

stopped until parliament has had a chance to debate the issue anl esh some relevant laws. facial recognition entrepreneur zak doffman agrees. >> facial recognition should not be everywhere. ithould not be looking for everybody. it shouldn't be used in an ad hoc way in the commercial world. it should be regulated. it should be used in controlled conditions. when it's used properly, it's a fantastic tool. >> reporter: the plaintiff suing the south wales police begs toer diff. >> even in the u.k. or the u.s., it's not as though you have to look very hard to find examples of police overstepping their they use terms of h data that they might have on citizens. now, they might not do that often, and they might not always do it deliberately, but it does happen. and so, making sure that there is a robust regulatory regime is something that is in the public's interest and the police's interest, so that we can tell when a line has been crossed, and we know where the line is.

>> sreenivasan: all too often when we in the western media report on the republic of congo, we bring you stories of civil unrest and violence. but there's a lot more to congo than that, and a new multimedia project, five years in making, is looking to change the narrative. newshour weekend's ivette ealiciano has more. >> reporter: for, dutch film producer eva vonk shuttled between eupe and the republic of congo, trying to answer one question. >> how can we crte more awareness about the congo basin, anich is the second largest rainforest on the ? >> reporter: the nearly 500 million acre forest stretches across six countries in central africa, including the congo. >> so how we tried to kind of gather information and educate ourselves about this place was googling things. and if you actually look at them e search results of the congo, it's very discouraging. imagery of war, and very fear- driven model.or >> rr: vonk is trying to change the perception of the

region through a project and book called "congo tales." it's a multimedia effort that collects oral myths from the central african country and pairs them with dreamlik pictures of those living around odzala-kokoua national park. the park makes up almost five million acres of the congo basit but, before these photos were taken, the stories had to beec colld. vonk hired social worker maret mouendet, who traveled around the northern district of mbomo gathering traditional ese e,les. his wife, annie idho runs the local radio station, had orlisteners call in with m stories. in total, 72 tales were collected, which included themes of jealousy, love, the age-old tension of humans versus nature, and the spiritual world. >> i can also shoot from there. >> reporter: to translate these stories into pictures, vonk relied on pieter henket, a

photographer better known for snapping high fashion pictures of celebrities like lady gaga, than working in remote forests. >> it's extremely hot, extremely humid. the cameras are literally sweating. like, when you open a lens, water would almost come out of the camera. so it was tough. >> reporter: for vonk, what proved to be the most crucial step in the project was building trust with the local community. >> when we kind of cracked the code, by for example hiring the director of the local radio station that knew everyone, that would broadcast for us what we were doing, we startreally be just amazed by having asked for ten women to join us to form a line to tell a story. and then 50 women would show upn so, finally, it just grew greater and greater, and so i think that this conn ctivity and thlaboration and this co-creating, you can really tell from the pictures.he >> reporter:ollaboration also became a way for the congolese to record stories that might be forgotten.

>> we learned that-- the people there were saying that when an old person dies, it's like library of stories burning down. >> reporter: it's a saying that resonated with the project participants. ♪ ♪ kovo n'sondé, a congolese philosopher, helped adapt the stories for the book, drawing from his own family's history. >> these cultural identities are not-- are not, so much, known. and that's why this project, t"" congo tales" project, and similar projects are very important to, to push the oral traditions, values, and principles, to share it to the world. >> reporter: in helping create this book, n'sondé took great effort to ma sure the stories bridged regional and culturalde diwithin the congo. >> it was part of my responsibility to-- to-- to make this project a vecy national pr not only north, south, east or west, but all together. and, and people, people in mbomo was very proud.

and i am also proud that this jettle village with this p represents the entire nation of the congo. >> our project sta"led with, 's create awareness for the congo basin, but let's also create awareness for the local communities that call this place their home." because the one thing can't exclude the other. the one thing is not necesrily more important than the other. >> reporter: there's obviously a very complicated and long history of european colonization in africa. what would you say to critics who might take issue with two whitpeople telling these stories through a white lens? >> i think, of course, we are extremely self-aware oe the fact thate white europeans going into the congo basin to do a project. and i think we really try to always start with dialogue, and always invite the right people around us that can actually help us understand our privilege,

because it's hard to seehat from within, right? we are not the storytellers here, but we're trying to crte content, together withor stellers, that are often not being given the right attention we think they deserve.r: >> reporte the multimedia project includes a 15-minute children's film baseon the congolese fable "the little fish and the crocodile." it's a tale of doobed friendship een a trusting fish and a conniving crocodile. local children played characters in the storyhat reminds viewers nature's laws always prevail. and, it's just onengore tale is sharing with the world. >> the great thilm about this s that it's in a format that can travel. a book, of course, is also-- it's just something-- it'sth sog to have. there is so much wisdom in this book. and there is so much wisdom inth e pictures and the stories that are behind them and engage with them. and so we have given you many wa to do that.

>> this is pbs newshour weekend, saturday. >> sreenivasan: graffiti may be finding new homes.in ead of on city buildings or train cars, works inspired by graffiti are being displayed i art galleries and shows. you might say traditional street art is now going beyond the reets. and, that is the name of an exhibit in brooklyn, new york. >> graffiti is a very simple human emotion made visible. >> sreenivasan: that'sphow artist s powers describes his work. the new york-based artist, also known as espo, moved from philadelphia during the height of new york city's graffitin movemente 1990s. large buildings are the typical canves for his graphic desig and street art, but now his work is being showcased inside, at the "beyond the streets" exhibit in brooklyn, new york. >> what's going on here, these are symbols, they're packets of information, that try to conden the human experience into the smallest package possible.

>> sreenivasan: work from more than 150 artists from across the globe fill the exhibit, each showcasing a unique style and interpretation of street art. australian husband and wife artists who call themselves "dabsmyla" use bright colors and floral prints, while artists such as patrick martinez transforms typical teon signs inls of activism. roger gastman is curator of" bend the streets." >> and they've gone into the studios and they've made completeew bodies of work, often inspired by the streets. but it is not work salvaged from the street. >> sreenivasan: gastman's own experience with graffiti inspired both the new yorkmi exhibit and a r 2011 exhibit in los angeles. >> the show is honestly made to educate the public about graffiti, about street art, and where the culture has gone, and other artists who continue to draw inspiration is culture. >> sreenivasan: the two-floor exhibit, featuring an in-house tattoo parlor every friday and a fake record store, trash records, is running until august 25.

>> sreenivasan: coming up, tomowe'll have a report from iraq where special correspondent simona foltyn investigates the origins of mysterious crop fires that threaten the country's quest to feed itself. that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. have a good night. captioning sponsor by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour wkend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz.

sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the j.p.b. foundation.nd rosa. walter, in memory of george o'neil. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement p'sducts. thhy we're your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting. a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contributions to iour pbs stfrom viewers like you. thank you. - [announcer] coming up next is retire safe and secure

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