Met Police gets first permanent facial recognition cameras in London, sparking fears of ‘dystopian nightmare’

https://www.lbc.co.uk/crime/facial-recognition-camera-london-permanent-met-police/

by LoquaciousLord1066

28 comments

  1. “Reduce crime”

    “NOT LIKE THAT”

    With a rising population but a reduction in funding and officers what exactly do the public want to see happen?The police are a cow that can’t be milked anymore. Over stretched and over worked. Is it any surprise that measures like this come into effect?

  2. I don’t really have a problem with it. If it’s linked to Interpol that’s even better.

  3. Opponents seem to believe that someone will be immediately arrested solely on an AI ‘flagging’.

    They can’t comprehend that a team would be deployed to *properly* identify the individual before any arrest was considered.

  4. What’s the point in having all this authoritarian stuff if the criminals are just going to be indefinitely let off via our soft-sentencing paradigm?

    It’ll just be _”Oh look, our clever CCTV has detected that prolific bike thief who recently stole yet another bike, let’s arrest him… aaaand the Magistrates court will give him a: suspended sentence.”_ (same thing for shoplifters, pickpockets, phone snatchers)

    This shit only works if you actually lock away criminals with long prison sentences and don’t give them dozens of second chances. Seems like we’ll have the worst of both worlds: authoritarian surveillance where everyone gets spied on the entire time, but where the actual criminals will just be continually let off Scott free

  5. From a deployment test in Seven Sisters to permanence within a week

    We truly are fucked – All you cunts saying “nothing to fear nothing to hide” need to get comfortable with the fact that you no longer have any rights

    The boot is on your neck, and it’s only going to press down harder

  6. I wouldn’t have a problem with AI… IF it could be assured to have the right safeguards in place to avoid the same kind of biases that time and again AI keeps churning up from poor training and deployment.

    But as we all know, the UK public sector has a terrible track record when it comes to IT projects, the MET have a shit track record when it comes to unbiased policing, and UK policing is about as advanced when it comes to technology as my 70 year old dad with his Chromebook fumbling through Facebook.

    This will be deployed using unquestioned and biased training models (as proven by the fact the MET have been unwilling to engage with experts in the issues surrounding AI), it’ll result in a number of false-positive arrest and detentions, there will be scandals and more than likely some serious incident that’ll cause them to have to roll back the technology (and knowing the MET they’ll try to cover it up or try to outsource the blame on the providers despite knowing full well AI isn’t reliable enough for this kind of thing). Then they will wipe the slate clean and move onto the next scandal without blinking.

    Its what Britain does best, ignore experts and fuck its citizens over. Just look at the Online Safety Act.

  7. Well that allays my fears that the facial recognition van by East Croydon station was there for the sole purpose of having me show up in someone’s shitty AI “artwork”…

  8. You don’t need facial recognition. The fckers have masks on running round dressed in all black or grey. Easy

  10. I assume this will be used exclusively on people I don’t like, and only for justice, so this seems like a good thing.

  11. Our country is fast changing from a high trust society to a low trust one. Sadly these measures are now needed along with ID cards. The amount of brazen criminality one now sees is shocking.

  12. I remember when it was first reported that the police force was going to use the same technology as the Chinese communist party it was said to be a far right conspiracy theory.  The social conditioning is unreal, now it’s applauded in the comments although not sure how many of these are from civil servants working for the regime.  

    Years ago I was in China and I crossed a road and by the time I got to the other side of the road I had the equivalent of twenty pounds deducted from my bank account.   No judge no jury just a camera and software.  I’m still there in their database. The cameras don’t just identify people through facial recognition but through their walk which is individual for everyone.  This gets linked in to your social credit score. Your kids might not be allowed to go to certain schools if you’re a jay walker for example!

  13. Where are the Bladerunners and 15 Minute City conspiracy nuts today?

  14. Obviously if it works properly this is potentially great.

    The problem is, there’s a reasonable fear it won’t work properly, and innocent people will be targeted.

    Let’s not forget they [trialled it at Notting Hill Carnival way back in 2017](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/15/uk-police-use-of-facial-recognition-technology-failure). It didn’t find many people, which would have meant the test failed. This was unacceptable to the police, who had decided their new toy would work, even if it didn’t, so they just wound down the match accuracy until it started identifying people, and patted themselves on the back.

    Yes, they absolutely started arresting people based on that and nothing else.

    [The Met has also been caught lying about the information it holds on people.](https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/journalists-named-on-secret-files-police-admit-ww9cht02btj)

    That’s the problem.

  15. This stuff is great when you are a liberal democracy but once in place, it is simply a matter of time before nutters get in power.

    Rolling against the universe that good people will always be in charge is foolish.

  17. Not too long ago in London they brought out a helicopter to chase down a prolific phone snatcher. Great that the criminal is caught but it’s too costly and there are not enough helicopters for the vast amount of phone snatchers and shop robbers. Drones controlled by police officers can provide cheap and effective surveillance for catching these criminals, if not actually being equipped with disabling equipments to immobilise suspects until the police can arrive in person.

  18. First ones that you have been made aware of. I know for a fact that even though they were categorised as “temporary” they have been up and in place for a long time.
    FYI I worked on them

  20. If all this system does is send out alerts when a known criminal is spotted and NOTHING else. Then cool, carry on.

    However its outrageously likey that this will log when and where every single recognised face is at all times even if those people are not “at large” or have ever been criminals at all.

    9:42:32 – Joe Bloggs, High Street, Camera 3.

    9:42:58 – Joe Bloggs, High Street, Camera 2.

    9:43:34 – Joe Bloggs, Larger Lane, Camera 5.

    etc. etc. etc.

    Thats dystopian AF.

  21. What about the dystopia nightmare where criminals can act with total impunity?

    When you can’t even take your phone out in public or leave your bike outside?

  22. They put up CCTV cameras in the estate near me. A kid with a paintball gun did £17k of damage to them before the got caught.

  23. High taxes. High crime. Cut to disabled people’s benefits. Pass through assisted dying (which is a stepping stone to eugenics). Usher in facial ID crap. Fly to America and be a bitch to Trump and come back with tail between legs now paying even more for Ukraine (Ukraine needs our help I know).

    Fucking hell it’s a bleak future for UK.

  24. Maybe a ban on face coverings then. As 99% of the little shits in our area wear balaclavas and ski masks year round. Ironically, same ones that wouldn’t wear face masks during covid.

  25. Just flood your face with infrared light and blind the camera. Someone showed an example of this built into sunglasses and all the camera could see was a massive blown out blob where the persons face was meant to be.

  26. What’s the point in all of this CCTV investment if in 9/10 times, absolutely nothing happens in most crime cases anyway?

    Burglaries, thefts, assault, sexual assaults and so on all go unanswered daily across the UK, and we’re already the country with the most CCTV monitoring in Europe (London is the highest with around 70 camera’s per 1000 people).

  27. When face-recognition was first introduced in London the police said it would be entirely voluntary and then went on to immediately arrest anyone who hid their face or avoided the cameras.

    Base on past performance this technology will be used for the most egregious and politicized overreach possible and with negligible effect on actual crime.

  28. “I’ve got nothing to hide” Jesus Christ you people are thick

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