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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?"
You're being an agent provocateur here but it has to be said that this is a trend in the UK security services - they want the right to monitor everything you do but a notoriously camera-shy themselves. I guess it's similar to how nobody is more paranoid about their posessions being taken than a thief.
Personally I think that an always-on camera wirelessly streaming to a backup server should be standard equipment for the police. It would eliminate a level of "He said,she said" in coourt cases. But I guess the police don't like the idea because at the moment if it's your word against an officer the officer's word has precedence so they feel they don't need it.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Reference the Robert Dziekanski case. The 4 cops tasered this poor bastard 5 times, sat on him till he was dead, wouldn't take the cuffs off when the paramedics finally showed up. The cops lied and lied and lied some more, even though there was video clearly showing what happened.Without the video they would have gotten away with it.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
I'm pretty tired of hearing these riots being referred to as being anything remotely like V for Vendetta. These are young people, disenfranchised people without jobs or educations, robbing stores and beating people up and stealing their stuff. None of them are attacking the government directly for political reasons. They are hurting their own people; it's a social implosion and it's fucking sad.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Well. One thing 5000 cameras DIDN'T do is stop people from looting.
Next time they should obviously begin by looting the cameras.