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Controversial Police Facial Recognition Test Fails to Recognize Anyone in London (independent.co.uk)
Police officers have just begun testing facial recognition software in London. Slashdot reader Bruce66423 reports:
After all the concern about the [first] trial, it appears to have been a bust. "Police have admitted that no one was arrested during a trial of controversial facial recognition technology, which sparked privacy and human rights concerns," reports the Independent. On the other hand, this may lead us to get to get complacent about the threat that is out there.
Detective Superintendent Bernie Galopin, the force's lead for facial recognition technology, pointed out that "All alerts against the watchlist will be deleted after 30 days and faces in the database that did not generate an alert were deleted immediately." But an advocacy and policy officer from the National Council for Civil Liberties complains that pedestrians were never informed what was happening -- except for one man who was apparently stopped erroneously after a "false positive" match (which the officers failed to first confirm on their own).
"Opponents argue that the software currently being used by British police forces is 'staggeringly inaccurate' and has a chilling effect on society," reports the Independent, "while supporters see it as a powerful public protection tool with the ability to help track terrorists, wanted criminals and vulnerable people....
"The use of facial recognition is more prevalent in the U.S., where it was used to track down an alleged mass shooter following a massacre at a newspaper's office last week."
Detective Superintendent Bernie Galopin, the force's lead for facial recognition technology, pointed out that "All alerts against the watchlist will be deleted after 30 days and faces in the database that did not generate an alert were deleted immediately." But an advocacy and policy officer from the National Council for Civil Liberties complains that pedestrians were never informed what was happening -- except for one man who was apparently stopped erroneously after a "false positive" match (which the officers failed to first confirm on their own).
"Opponents argue that the software currently being used by British police forces is 'staggeringly inaccurate' and has a chilling effect on society," reports the Independent, "while supporters see it as a powerful public protection tool with the ability to help track terrorists, wanted criminals and vulnerable people....
"The use of facial recognition is more prevalent in the U.S., where it was used to track down an alleged mass shooter following a massacre at a newspaper's office last week."
ARM... for now.
The British public seems quite willing to put perceived safety above freedom, which is unfortunate because politicians are good at scaring people.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
ARM... for now.
ARM is a bit old to be considered part of "these days" though you could argue that they're still making new designs and it's those to which you were referring. However, almost none of the big players use the standard design any longer and instead license the ISA and build their own custom cores. Even some of the Chinese phone companies are starting to get in on building their own SoCs and it probably won't be long before they start developing their own cores for those designs as well.
Considering how much better the custom cores turn out than the stock designs, I'm not sure ARM is doing anything too great at the moment. RISC-V could even supplant them in terms of ISA development, but I'm not putting as much stock into that as some others are.
The British public seems quite willing to put perceived safety above freedom, which is unfortunate because politicians are good at scaring people.
The British public is hardly unique in that regard. Countries outside of the U.S. are hardly immune to terrible leaders (and no good mainstream choice for replacing them) but at least the founders put enough safeguards in place to prevent those leaders and an idiotic electorate from doing the kind of harm that's being done to Britain at the moment.
A setback for those in the UK keen on establishing a police state.