To have concerns about live facial recognition technology becoming commonplace?

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/may/24/police-live-facial-recognition-cameras-england-and-wales

That ship has sailed tbh

It terrifies me. My own phone doesn’t know who I am half the time.

Well they caught an armed nonce with a 6 year old girl recently, I remember reading about it. Quite possibly saved her life. They seem to be quite effective.

So what are your concerns?

Biases and the selling of data. The potential for image manipulation. Off the top of my head.

Facial recognition software is programmed by white males whose bias leads it to be most accurate detecting white males.
It is very inaccurate when it comes to people of colour so we are going to have more instances of people of colour being wrongly identified and questioned by police.
This was already being mooted around 2020 but I suspect that the pandemic managed to hide any developments.

Also, emotive situations such as the "armed nonce" scenario should lead to questions about a system that allows that to happen in the first place rather than requiring technology to mop up a likely avoidable situation if risk was properly addressed and assessed in the first place.

First number on the bingo card checked by the way.

You're worried about your data being sold and yet are on a forum which is fairly notorious for being lax with their security to the point they've had multiple serious criminal breaches? Interesting.

I'm not for or against these cameras particularly, but you've not given me a very compelling argument against so far. Are there sources for the things you've described actually happening or are they theoretical?

Police facial recognition holds your data for literally a milli second and if your name doesn’t come up as wanted, it’s deleted. So what is the problem? You should be more worried about other cameras recording you - shops, malls, etc. as there’s less control there.

There are lots of independent studies on the accuracy of facial recognition software. It shows bias because the programmers have used more data on white males than any other group.

One issue is making sure those behind it are properly vetted and personal charges can be brought, as they can when handling data/money laundering. People need to be resident here for at least five years before being given the jobs.
Then there's the issue of it not working correctly for people of colour, which is obviously the main problem. So we can't use it as the main evidence during trials. Phone evidence etc needs to link up.
I think that it's a good thing when people are missing. Or in the case of Constance Martin/acid attackers etc.

There are plenty of sources in existence regarding bias.

The genie is out of the bottle in terms of lack of security and sale of data, so implication of hypocrisy in posting here is fair but futile.

Image manipulation is still hypothetical as far as we know, but the sophistication of deep fakes and AI in general is concerning. Whatever we have now publicly is at least a decade or more behind the speed of innovation in the private sector and the industrial military complex.

Some politicians greatly admire the Chinese social credit system and would like to see it become widely used.

@MistressoftheDarkSide You are aware that a lot of peoples home CCTV and Video doorbells now have facial recognition built into them.

I know my Euphy Cameras and doorbell record and store an image of every visitors face too my home/driveway and door automatically online and locally to my storage device. I call also assign names to them and they will specifically notify me when certain people arrive.

Its pretty common place all over.

I don’t live in the UK anymore, and find it amazing how quickly crime gets solved where I live and how safe it is

Shoplifting - person picked up by the police in a couple of hours

I don’t know whether it’s this technology or something else but it is incredible to live somewhere that crime is actually detected and solved

I remember in London the reverse - actually feeling amazed when a police officer actually turned up following a burglary at our house. Of course never solved …

Yes, dinosaur that I am, I do recognise it's all very commonplace etc.

Doesn't mean I have to like it, and doesn't mean there aren't concerns when it's a sophisticated tool of the state with little discussion, debate or transparency surrounding its implementation.

Sunglasses and a broad brimmed hat? 👒🕶️

😂 Funnily enough, I do wear both those things while out and about.....

You should be more concerned then why companies like Eufy which is a Chinese company (a brand of Anker Innovations) is doing with all the facial recognition images they are harvesting from the huge numbers of the British public devices that are being uploaded into their chines servers every day, than what our own security forces are doing to tackle crime then.

I think it's reasonable to be concerned about both and possible intersections between the two.

Recently Legal Aid data was hacked so it’s not unreasonable to think that data isn’t secure as we hope.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgr5g4pv2l0o

This news has not be talked about as much as M&S/Co-op but very serious and I hope that it isn’t affected the outcomes of any trials.

it’s not unreasonable to think that data isn’t secure as we hope
I agree, the larger the stash of data the greater the incentive for hackers who can profit from said data.

YANBU, I'm especially worried for people of colour as it's very bad at recognising faces that aren't white and I've already heard (including on these boards) of totally innocent people with no record at all having the police raid their houses for crimes they had absolutely nothing to do with.

And yes, international security concerns are pretty reasonable too.

Yep agree. Not to mention Reform are trying to create a MAGA like cult here of thick poorly educated racists and misogynists and they're doing quite well.

Half a million of them in London recently and the entitled protest organiser spouting that he can't wait four years for our democratically elected prime minister to be ousted. Apparently the rest of the country's votes don't count, only the loud, ignorant voices of these beer swilling gammons.

Imagine what that bunch of cunts would do with this technology. Because if people think that Farage isn't planning a US type scenario here with the aid of his backers, whomever they may be, then they are very very naive. Like Trump that grasping turd of a man would sell his soul and ours for power.

For a paper that is proud of its "progressive" credentials, the Guardian always seems to run scared of any new technology.