Biometric Face Recognition At Your Local Mall

dippityfisch writes "The Sydney Morning Herald reports that face recognition is being considered at Westfield's Sydney mall to catch offenders. The identification system matches images captured by surveillance cameras to an existing database of faces. Police said they could not comment on the center's intentions, but would welcome any move to improve security and technology in the area."

Comments

It all comes down to what you do with it

[FlyMysticalDJ]

I could see this actually being somewhat useful, though I admit I didn't read TFA. If you ignore the possible invasion of privacy which is kind of moot in such a public place, then if the algorithms to match faces work well enough, you could use it to identify criminals. I don't know if sex offenders are limited from being in malls with kid play areas, but if they are, that would be one good application I would stand for. Also if someone loses a child in a mall, this could make finding said child a lot easier.