London’s Metropolitan Police Service announced Friday that it will deploy live facial recognition cameras, which already have been tested in London and in South Wales, on the city’s streets within a month, BBC News reports.
Police said the cameras will be used for five or six hours at a time, and that they will create detailed lists of suspects who are wanted for serious and violent crimes for each period the cameras are used. According to law enforcement, the cameras are 70% accurate, but independent sources say the success rate is much lower, and privacy advocates call the cameras a “serious threat to civil liberties.”
One privacy advocacy group, Big Brother Watch, told the BBC that the decision is "an enormous expansion of the surveillance state and a serious threat to civil liberties in the UK".
The group's director Silkie Carlo added, "It flies in the face of the independent review showing the Met's use of facial recognition was likely unlawful, risked harming public rights and was 81% inaccurate."
The Met told the BBC that they will consult with local communities and warn them before putting up cameras, which will have clearly visible signs indicating their presence, and will be limited to covering a “small, targeted area.” Police will also be on location handing out leaflets that explain facial recognition scanning.
"We all want to live and work in a city which is safe: the public rightly expect us to use widely available technology to stop criminals," said Assistant Commissioner Nick Ephgrave told the BBC, saying the Met has “a duty” to use this technology, and that the public supports it.
"Equally I have to be sure that we have the right safeguards and transparency in place to ensure that we protect people's privacy and human rights. I believe our careful and considered deployment of live facial recognition strikes that balance."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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