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Scotland Yard Confirms It's Using Facial Recognition Tech
nonprofiteer writes "Scotland Yard confirms that it's using facial recognition technology to identify rioters in London. 'A law enforcement official, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said that facial recognition is one of many tools police are using to hunt suspects still at large.' Meanwhile, the vigilante group trying an amateur stab applying facial recognition to the riot photos abandoned the project because the results sucked. This is the big test of the surveillance state that London has become. Are all those cameras effective, or just taking a toll on privacy without bringing added security?"
Nope!
"We want to see who is doing a great job at enforcing the peace! Better law enforcement through publicity! We need his name and picture! After all, he has nothing to hide right? Right?"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Ronald Regan is sought for questioning.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
They need to broadcast V for Vendetta on every TV in the UK.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
As long as law enforcement doesn't take down social networks... People in London have been using it to protect themselves and communicate with each other from the yobs running around.
Use of this technology was inevitable and people can always argue about the "big brother" feeling with these cameras and technology, but in the end it dOesn't affect normal, law-aBiding citizEns except for Yobs.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
OK, firstly, London is a city not a state. But it's the second part of this sentence I have problems with. There are two possibilities. One is that the cameras are effective and allow their owners to identify people. Note that most CCTV cameras in the UK are privately owned, they aren't a part of some kind of government super network. But imagining they were, this could pose a privacy problem.
The second possibility is that they don't work reliably and you usually can't identify people due to hoods, baseball caps, or low quality images, in which case they aren't a privacy problem.
I don't see any way cameras can be both ineffective and a privacy problem simultaneously. If they don't work then they are, at best, an expensive placebo.
Judging from the quality of pictures put up by the Met, I'd imagine they're good enough to provide evidence in court if you already have an idea of who it is, but they probably aren't good enough to reliably identify you out of millions of possibilities, even assuming facial recognition tech was really good. There might be a few successes but most images are of too low quality or the intruders too well disguised for it to have any impact.
I'm glad the police can use this technology THIS TIME- although it is quite scary that it is progressing so much (and who knows when it will be used for less approvable scenarios). What the police have today corporations and criminals will have tomorrow (or is it the other way around). You can't escape it either. I stay away from Facebook and the like- but the fact that I'm a hot sexy beast means other people take photos of me and post it online. Even though I actively stay away from Facebook and other sites that catalogue my life- I'm still exposed via others.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I predicted this a while back.
Just remember, if you have strong views and opinions. Then you post about them on your Facebook. You are a ridiculously easy target to find. They are catalogued forever and for the rest of your life. If political correctness changes (and it will) then you could find yourself in a situation where you have done things that now the general public believes is abhorable. You are suddenly the target.
Just go to YourOpenBook.org and search
Incriminating huh? I can find people of any faith/religion or political motivation or even recent transgressions. Who they've slept with, what they believe etc. Whether or not they hate their boss. Ironically you need to execute Javascript from Facebook.com so they could in theory track your searches. So now we can track the people who are looking for people to persecute and we can use it to persecute. Nothing can possibly go wrong!
What's to stop someone from searching for your minority opinion and silencing you?
If that's not enough, there are plenty of reasons why you should quit.
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Clearly the rioters forgot to wear their Guy Fawkes masks.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Yes, you read my tone mostly right - I put things in quotes that are a dramatically amplified version of a serious point.
Not only are security forces camera shy, if you *do* get your own footage for your protection they then push even harder and game the system to make that an adjunct crime.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
If you make a Facebook account and upload a pic of a rioter who is also on Facebook, wouldn't they be auto-tagged?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
"Last night is slept with my boss's daughter...im such a lucky bustard " (female)
"4# I slept with my bestfriends girlfriend cos I wanted to get one over on him :) " (male)
"OMG! X X has just admitted that she has slept with a vicar! What a disgrace!!! " (female)
"wen u kod me a hure(bitch) u 4gt that the last tym i slept with ur father thats wen he sprayd the sour u in ma womb...watch ur mouth... " (male)
The last one confuses me. I am guessing that some of these are just rumours but that doesn't mean people won't believe them. I believe the Google CEO was right about kids having to change their names...
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May I present the latest in facial recognition software defense. The $0.25 solution.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
How is it "taking a toll on privacy" to collect data on people's behavior IN PUBLIC PLACES?
It also records the times when you entered and left private property. They can follow a person from the time he/she left his/her appartment all the way while they travel to their favourite sex-shop.
Not a big deal perhaps, unless you live next to the camera operator and he/she has a grudge against you for some reason.
Also, try to collect data on a policemans behavior in public places and you will see how public it really is.
Because people actually live in public places. Stalking is an invasion while just walking behind somebody for a short while is not. Seeing someone in public is something totally different than collecting every public presence and store the data. Always-on cameras ARE an invasion to privacy.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
this man? If so, call our tipster hotline at 1-888-4-unmask. Think of the children!
Yesssss... using facial recognition on people wearing hoodies, masks, and bandannas covering everything but their eyes. Somehow, that makes perfect governmental sense.
I8-D
Guy Fawkes is real part of their history.
Well. One thing 5000 cameras DIDN'T do is stop people from looting.
Privacy is terrorism.
then he promptly puts some puddy on and make up and looks just like hte guy scotland yard said uses facial recognition.
muhaha is it true?
Easy, because this is a complex issue. To over simplify:
Most people seem to have no problem with using all the technology at their disposal to catch these rioters. This includes CCTV, face recognition etc.
Next time there is a problem they can say "well we used this technology before." Then you get feature creep where they use it for every crime. Then they use it for suspicion of a crime. Next thing it's police principle to pull people over because the face recognition software thought they looked like someone who dropped a piece of litter three months back.
You might even argue this is acceptable, but the worry for me is how do I defend against the accusation? I have no evidence for my innocence except the CCTV that I have access to. It might be public CCTV cameras but if only the police have access then you can imagine a corrupt officer could frame trouble makers with relative ease. Or at least select amoungst the guilty to target his favourite pressure group.
You might be fine with all of this and say I'm worrying over nothing and I might be, but the only thing that would make me 100% comfortable with this is if the public CCTV cameras' records were publicly available so that we all could defend ourselves. more than that I'd want access to CCTV of the police investigating their case against me.
But I don't see any of that happening.
So do I have a problem with this at the moment? No. But as the old saying goes, first they came after the Jews, but I wasn't a Jew so did nothing; then they came after the gays, etc.. Then they came after me and there was no-one left. You have to stop these things before they get to the point whereby they come after you.
What has worried me about these riots if what happens if we in the UK ever had to violently overthrow a corrupt government? What happens if democracy stops working. If I understand the US, then the second amendment was partially intended to allow the citizens to get rid of a corrupt government; too many of these tools that are only in the hand of the government is a worrying scenario.
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
I expect the police have a large collection of mugshots to work off, and lots of high and low quality pictures of looters in action, plus random pics taken in and around the time of the crimes. So why not cross reference one set of pics to the other and see what matches come up? It might certainly provide leads that let them track someone done. They'd still have to prove it in court of course.
Except London isn't a region. The nearest UK (or rather, English) equivalent of a US state is called a county. London isn't one of those, either.
P.S. the example you didn't link to gives two examples of European states - Italy and Germany. Not Berlin and Rome. It also mentions Bavaria - not Munich.
Fail.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Because of the collecting?
Unfortunately I've used all my mod points. Your post is spot on.
Our government *is* corrupt. Case in point; the Digital Economies Bill and Peter Mandelson.
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Take images of something so people can look at it after the fact.
The value of the cameras will be prosecution.
Cameras aren't an issue. Who they are implanted, the laws, and the response people can make against them are.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Because of this I have often wondered if I were to print up a bumper sticker and stick it to the bumper and just below the driver's side window that states "By approaching this vehicle you agree to audio and video recording". It basically becomes a EULA but similar signs exist places that have video surveillance (the "this premisses is under 24 hour video surveillance" signs).I think one could argue that in a 2 party consent state that since those signs are legal the warning sticker on your vehicle would also be legal since they were informed that they might be recorded. This would also be similar to the recording stating that this call may be recorded for quality reasons when you call a customer service number. Now I am not a lawyer so I don't have any idea how this would pan out but it seems logical to me.
A vehicle seems like an ideal place for a personal recording device as there would be ample power and it could be hardened against authority oopses. It would also provide a number of good mounting positions for multiple cameras and mics.
Time to offend someone
Yes, cameras are just like hauling people off and gassing them.
It's an appeal to emotion fallacy to make the slippery slope fallacy seem legit.
If you need to overthrown the government, then you do it in mass. Cameras can't STOP you, then can only be used to find out you did it, and if you change the government, then who cares what's on 'tape'?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Anyone want to take a bet that Facebook is the best facial recognition vendor for governments...
Oh, I totally agree. The law has to cut both ways, and with public confidence in the police (up until the riots) at an all-time low something had to be done. Unfortunately this is all part of the backlash of 9/11 and 7/7 - in the wake of those events the security forces launched a huge grab for power that was given to them by a frightened populace and is only now being questioned.
The biggest repercussion of the riots? Personally I believe it is this - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14459127 - the Police were handed a mandate to use rubber bullets on the mainland for the first time. Although they weren't actually used that barrier has been breached and it's now easier for the subject to be raised next time.
It's very easy to hand power over to authorities, much harder to roll it back. Beware the trap of legislation passed in fear or anger that would be unacceptable to cooler heads.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Fortunately, they are (kind of). I don't remember the name of the show (anyone know?) but some years ago there was a comedy series that involved the creator going in to shops, stores, etc and making a fool of himself. The astonished onlookers reactions were being recorded by CCTV but otherwise there were no cameras. Then the TV company used data protection laws to claim the footage of themselves and turned it into a TV show. I don't think it lasted very long after the novelty wore off, but it made the principle clear - you can request CCTV of yourself. I think it may be gated on having some kind of reason or maybe you have to pay a small fee to compensate the owner for their time.
CCTV, facial recognition, these things are complex issues. The limits of state power are something that have been debated for thousands of years. The people in Parliament are not stupid and recognize that government power has benefits and costs, they weigh it up when they pass laws as they know they too will be subject to those very same laws they passed. Politicians dislike being hoisted by their own petard, so that acts as one of many brakes on abuses of power.
In theory you can submit a FOI request for footage of an incident, or of a certain time. In practice the footage is "unavailable" or "destroyed" just before you made the request.
Mark Thomas did a series of programs on this - he'd take a Morris dancing team and get them to dance up and down in front of a building with CCTV for an hour, then put in a FOI request a week or so later. The number of cases where they "couldn't find the particular piece of footage" was shocking.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Are all those cameras effective, or just taking a toll on privacy without bringing added security?
Well, they didn't prevent the rioting and looting, so they obviously weren't contributing to security, just enabling punishment after the fact.
The only way to get security is to take the responsibility on yourself - this sort of thing probably wouldn't get far in my neighborhood, because my neighbors and I are willing (and able) to to protect ourselves (we'd be in our front yards with rifles & shotguns, most likely).
Just make sure you turn it all off if you're driving home after a few hours at the bar...or other instances where you do not want to gather evidence on yourself.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
"Scotland Yard confirms that it's using facial recognition technology to identify rioters in London."
And they wonder why everybody in London is rioting.
With TSA people sliding their hands down our children's pants, I am amazed that we in the U.S. haven't smashed every pane of glass in every airport in the country.
Make the sale and possession of hooded shirts illegal.
This is the beginning of the end of the UK as we know it today.
This will spread to the US and it will be bloody.
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Benefits to who and costs to who? Frequently those are differing "who"'s with differing amounts of political power.
Don't expect this to self-correct without a lot of public pressure. Even that might be optimistic.
I don't really know about Britain, but in the US we seem to have been on a one-way trip towards a dictatorship since Nixon. What Nixon got impeached for wouldn't even make headlines today.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Just like search warrants. The only question is how to regulate it, not whether to use it or not.
Many of your concerns can be addressed by having CCTV data not running directly to police, rather handled by court (like search warrants) or a similar independent institution, where citizens can have a right to access all the recordings where they are present.
They can't do that easily. Most CCTV in the UK is privately owned and not connected to anything other than a video recorder. To follow someone from their home to the sex shop they would need to get the tapes from all the CCTV systems on route, and realistically most people don't have a CCTV camera pointing at their front door or even anywhere near their homes (people who live above shops may be an exception here).