German Minister Wants Facial Recognition Software At Airports and Train Stations (www.rte.ie)

An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes a surprising report from Ireland's National Public Service Broadcaster (based on a report in the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag): Germany's Interior Minister wants to introduce facial recognition software at train stations and airports to help identify terror suspects following two Islamist attacks in the country last month... "Then, if a suspect appears and is recognised, it will show up in the system," he told the paper. He said a similar system was already being tested for unattended luggage, which the camera reports after a certain number of minutes. The article reports that other countries are also considering the technology.

Comments

And so it begins.

[Anonymous Coward]

Germany has managed to carry enough post-Nazi guilt to respect privacy, but their underlying culture is fairly authoritarian. While those with a good memory haven't all died off yet, the country does stand a good chance of going from 0 to 100 with a couple large scale attacks.

Which is exactly what the terrorists want, but people are fucking stupid.

Need Even more

[JimSadler]

I think facial recognition systems should be deployed all over every town and city as well as roads. People simply have no need to hide where they are or where they are going. And yes there are stalkers in this world but it would also enable stalkers to be swept up rather easily. I do know that many people really want to hide their actions and activities. The problem is that also allows really bad people to get away with all kinds of crimes.

Re:Not a good idea

[gweihir]

That is not actually a problem. Because if they actually knew what terror-suspects look like, they could get them by other means. Fact is, this is not about terrorism at all, this is about getting the public used to Big Brother.