Facial recognition leaves Brits in ‘digital police line-ups’ without realising

7 comments

1. I like how they try to capitalise on the slippery-slope angle at the end, despite the courts explicitly ruling on the limits of the application of this technology within the bounds of human rights law.

   Besides, the tech is also double-checked by a human operator which they also neglect to mention.

2. As long as the AI works well and not a single innocent person is targeted, I won’t shed a tear for the criminals this will catch.

3. I’ve got a revelation – your face is compared to wanted criminal photos every time a police officer looks at you. The difference is on those occasions the decision to stop you relies on the officer’s memory, but in facial recognition the process starts with a computer and then gets checked by a human.

4. The bots certainly don’t seem to have any concerns about this invasive and dystopian technology, but I’m not so sure. I think if people weren’t so worn down and neutered there’d have been real, robust opposition to this shit being implemented.

5. Considering people are happy to publish their entire lives on social media, don’t even think about how they are being tracked across all the websites they use, their viewing habits and shop purchases analysed, have their vehicle tracked everywhere and many, many other ways in which organisations know who you are, what you like and what you are up to.

   For some reason people get very funny about facial recognition. Nobody is going to be arrested because the computer said so. Every match will be checked by a human and while occasionally false positives will happen all that will potentially result is a bit of inconvenience while you prove who you are and show you aren’t the person in the picture.

6. I don’t care if it is. If it leads to a criminal being arrested fine.

7. If you are not a criminal you have nothing to fear from this. In fact, not just faces but everyones DNA and fingerprints should be on a database as well. [In 2006 Tony Blair said the national DNA database should be expanded to include every citizen](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1532210/DNA-database-should-include-all.html), in order to track down murderers and rapists. Hopefully the new Labour administration will bring that dream to life. Every citizen will have their face, DNA, and fingerprints collected and society will enter a new crime free era.