TECH NEWS: Face-off in Britain over controversial surveillance tech

The deployment of live facial recognition (LFR) technology by London police in Croydon illustrates the increasing use of advanced AI-powered tools in law enforcement. On a cloudy morning in December, this technology was strategically placed near a railway station, where it scanned the faces of people passing by without their knowledge.InformationGuideNigeria

LFR technology works by creating biometric facial signatures and then instantaneously comparing them with a database or watchlist of suspects. In this instance, the use of LFR led to 10 arrests for a variety of crimes, including threats to kill, bank fraud, theft, and possession of a crossbow.

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This isn’t the first time LFR has been utilized in the UK. It was previously employed at high-profile events such as the British Grand Prix in July and King Charles III’s coronation in May. The success demonstrated in these trials has prompted the UK government to advocate for more widespread use of this technology.JAMB Portal

The increasing use of LFR raises important discussions about privacy, civil liberties, and the accuracy of the technology, especially in identifying individuals from different demographic groups. Balancing the benefits of such advanced surveillance tools with ethical and legal considerations is a key challenge for governments and law enforcement agencies globally.JAMB Result

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“Developing facial recognition as a crime fighting tool is a high priority,” policing minister Chris Philp told police chiefs in October, adding that the technology has “great potential”.

“Recent deployments have led to arrests that would otherwise have been impossible and there have been no false alerts,” he added.

But the call to expedite its roll-out has outraged some parliamentarians, who want the government’s privacy regulator to take “assertive, regulatory action” to prevent its abuse.NYSC Portal

“Facial recognition surveillance involves the processing, en masse, of the sensitive biometric data of huge numbers of people — often without their knowledge,” they wrote in a letter.

“It poses a serious risk to the rights of the British public and threatens to transform our public spaces into ones in which people feel under the constant control of corporations and the government.”