Facial recognition vans are being deployed in Piccadilly Gardens to help GMP catch criminals
A GMP briefing took place outside Central Library on Thursday morning (November 20)(Image: Manchester Evening News)
While the Christmas Markets were still quiet and people were busy at work, a very different sort of meeting was taking place in front of Zippy.
As temperatures hovered around freezing on a cold November day, wrapped-up commuters may have spotted an unusual number of Greater Manchester Police officers congregated at 10am in front of in St Peter’s Square’s giant Santa Claus.
But it was all for a crucial reason, as officers took part in a team briefing to discuss how they will keep the city safe during the busy Christmas Markets period.
The meeting was part of Operation Avro, a day of action in which GMP focusses a high concentration of officers in a specific area to tackle crime.
Led by GMP Chief Inspector Mike Tachauer, Thursday morning’s briefing centred around Piccadilly Gardens – a key area of focus due to its high footfall throughout the Markets season.
These facial recognition vans will be deployed in Piccadilly Gardens to help the police identify criminals(Image: Manchester Evening News)
“We’re anticipating a busy weekend of footfall now the markets are in full force,” he said. “We’ve got Halloween and Bonfire Night behind us and now it gets busier and busier in the run up to Christmas. Pay-day has been and gone for some people so we we will see plenty of footfall in the city.
“We always make sure we have lots of resilience in the city both from local neighbourhood teams and specialist operations. Sometimes we have protests or football fans in the city so we will make sure we have a strong presence in the city this weekend.”
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Chief Inspector Tachauer added there are always officers ‘keeping the public safe’, even if they are out of sight, with Operation North Star now in force across the city. The operation sees a team of 16 staff members dedicated to patrolling the Christmas Markets.
Alongside the operation, GMP have based their facial recognition vans over the next few weeks in Piccadilly Gardens.
Speaking about the facial recognition vans in deployment in the city centre, Inspector Tachauer explained: “Nationally, there have been trialled in a couple of forces where they have rolled out these facial recognition vans. We’re lucky enough to have two in the north west.
“GMP really wanted to be one of the first forces to roll them out – in the city especially – so we’ve already had three deployment of those facial recognition vans. We’ve got two vans that will be out in Piccadilly Gardens today.”
The police manually load pictures to the system of people the force are searching for; such as those who are wanted around Manchester, who may be subject to a criminal behaviour order or those on a missing list. The facial recognition vans will then alert GMP officers if it recognises a face from the list.
Explaining the technology, Chief Inspector Tachauer said: “It’s really important to say that it’s not a speculative thing, we’re not harvesting loads of pictures of people, it’s not linked to anything other than keeping the public safe so we preload pictures of people who are wanted around Manchester who may be subject to a criminal behaviour order or may be on a missing list.
“So it’s these images that people are looking for. If you’re not on this list then you won’t be picked up by the cameras.”
A GMP officer on shift in Piccadilly Gardens with the facial recognition van told the Manchester Evening News that they are well received by the community as the rate of criminality drops due to police presence.
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He explained: “Each time we’ve arrived in the gardens it has been positively received by the community. The shops are happy to see us, probably because criminality drops when we’re here.
“And it has alerted us to people who are wanted for offences that normally probably wouldn’t be stopped by police who are looking at people due to their appearance.
“Literally a minute ago a male was stopped who had failed to appear at court – not the type of person that officers would look to stop in the Gardens. It shows that the technology is an asset and does help police to stop the right people who should be at court for serious offences.”