The Herald:

ONCE again Scotland proves itself to be a nation pretty much uninterested in anything which matters beyond the navel-gazing minutiae of independence and the union.

There’s a miserable truth which few journalists and broadcasters like to admit: report on anything which doesn’t obsess on Scottish politics and your story will largely go ignored by most punters - not all, I hasten to add, but most. Climate change, nah. Human rights abuses overseas, meh. But somebody said something about independence or there’s a slagging match between one no-mark Scottish politician and another — up your story goes to the top of the charts.

So it’s depressing but unsurprising that news about the introduction of facial recognition in Scottish schools was received with barely a murmur - while overseas it got a lot more attention. We’re marching towards a surveillance state - and putting our kids in the frontline as guinea pigs - but because a story about facial recognition in schools doesn’t have some constitutional rammy at its heart, not too many folk seem care.

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