Police vans equipped with facial recognition technology are set to deployed in Brighton and Hove this winter.
Sussex Police is being given two of the live facial recognition (LFR) vans to use across the county.
They are equipped with cameras which scan faces against a watchlist of individuals wanted for serious offences.
Katy Bourne, the Sussex police and crime commissioner, said: “The LFR vans will be used to keep communities safe and help police locate the most serious criminals. I will be particularly interested to see how the technology is applied to identify prolific shoplifters.
“The new equipment means that criminals will have no place to hide. LFR vans have already been successfully used as a real-time deployment, comparing a live camera feed of faces against a watchlist to locate outstanding suspects.
“The Home Office have said that extensive work has taken place to ensure that the LFR technology algorithms have no statistical bias and that all matches will also be confirmed by an officer before any engagement or arrests take place.
“The use of LFR vans is strictly governed by data protection, equality and human rights laws, and can only be used for a policing purpose where it is necessary and proportionate.
“In line with statutory requirements, the vans will also be clearly signposted when deployed so that the public are aware if there is one in their local area.
“Any images of people who are not wanted by police are immediately blurred and deleted forever to protect residents and visitors in the county.”
Last year the Met arrested 587 people through LFR and charged 424. Of these, 58 were registered sex offenders and 38 were in breach of conditions and charged.
This is not going to go down well with law-abiding members of the public, on whom the majority of Police time will be being wasted with this new technology, surely? Most of us would far rather the Police spent their time investigating actual crimes rather than targeting the innocent going about our daily and lawful business.
What becomes the difference between this and living in a Police state? Meantime a neighbour got burgled and the Police didn’t want to know!
Are you speaking for all law-abiding members of the public? You are not speaking for me! I’d love for police time to be catching wanted people. This doesn’t target innocent people, only those who have been listed. Once flagged, a person then has to speak to them, confirm the identify and then arrest, or not, as appropriate. This is just a modern version of standard policing; as far back as Victorian times, the police had “rogues galleries” with faces to watch/arrest.
As for your neighbour’s robbery, if there’s an image of the burglar, this could be used to help catch them. Surely a good thing?
Unfortunately this technology does not differentiate between wanted people and innocent people so treats everyone like potential criminals. We have both legal and human rights to a private life. Even you.
My neighbour had a door Ring camera which captured a figure in a hoodie smashing the front door glass to get in. Police still didn’t want to know. They are adopting a real pick and choose attitude to crime nowadays. A tweet perceived as containing hurty words to someone is far more liable to get action than an old fashioned crime like break in.
Of course the technology treats wanted and innocent people differently! If it didn’t, it wouldn’t work! It looks at faces and if it sees a match, it alerts. It doesn’t alert to every face – that would make it useless. It may miss some faces and it may alert to some who are innocent. However, a person then looks at the alerted person, decides if they also think a match and then speaks to them.
I agree that social media policing has got far out of control and we need police back in the community. This kind of tool helps them to be more effective, however, it is only an aid and shouldn’t be everything. We have this every day with number plate recognition. Yes, it needs to be watched to ensure that it doesn’t work in negative ways, as any change needs. However, it is good news and I’m glad that Brighton will have it.
> it may alert to some who are innocent.
Wasting thousands of pounds on an automated system that is known to have faults is backwards. We need to stop having this misplaced trust in machines. Police used to have brains and judgment. Allowing the machines to take over is a scary step. Be aware that this system will be “upgraded with AI” soon.
Just hope you don’t look like someone who did something “bad”. If you are white you may be okay as these systems are known to have a really bad bias on not telling black faces apart. Go read up on the problems Shaun Thompson has had.
Rubbish. I’m law-abiding and I fully support the police approach.
Great news.
Now also ban face masks in public and especially those riding illegal eBikes and unlicensed motor bikes so they can be identified and prosecuted.
it smacks of big brother is watching you its a no from me…..as an aside be sure to check out and read carefully a petition on the uk government and parliament petition page…..repeal the online safety act…it currently has 524,599, signatures it needs many more it can be signed and reshared widely from all over the uk including brighton
I hate to break it to you but petitions are utterly useless.
A large amount of crime is committed many times by a few people. People who make their lives a pain for the majority. Brighton it seems has a number of these people with chaotic lives, many chronic drug and alcohol users and sometimes mental health issues. Many of whom seem to enjoy their ‘rebel’ activities. Anything that identifies and helps catch this lot is good for the rest of us. I am happy to face recognition to be tried.
First they scanned for the Criminals
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a criminal
Then they scanned for the socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they scanned for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they scanned for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they scanned for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Bit of Leonard Cohen there i think
Control of that should not be only with the Police, any faces other than criminals and wanted should be excluded from that system,
Tech is great when it works and it’s used for the right reasons. It does however give a huge amount of control to a very small percentage of our population so if they’re using it for good great but if the reasons get a little bent then it becomes very dangerous. You may end up being labelled as a face of interest just because you innocently showed up at a protest once etc that wasn’t in line with government views, say Palestine action for topical argument. You were at a protest so now you’re on a potential terrorist watch list just for supporting your rights to democratic free speech and get flagged by the facial recognition cameras all the time. It seems they’re slowly trying to outlaw protest these days already so it’s not many steps away. China does this sort of thing already and just because we tell ourselves our country is better and it would never happen here just means we consent all our freedoms and powers away to government in the name of safety without argument.
These technologies may be manned now but probably won’t be in the future, dealing out automated charges and court dates much the way all the automated traffic cameras do now and your only recourse will be to contact some automated bot to try and sort it out or just take it because it’s too much hassle. Great.. I haven’t got time for that I’m too busy doing the job of the supermarket checkout worker, now I have to scan my own shopping at the till and not get paid a penny for doing so, I’m so glad we have that tech. Could of passed on some of the cost savings to the consumer and given us a bit of a discount for scanning our own shopping but no we just work for free now and the benefit of automation trickles up as supermarkets announce record profits. As I said, tech is great when it’s used in the right way so just be careful what you wish for..
When we’re in a era where activist groups get labelled as terrorist groups and detained for non violent actions that make a statement and may cause disruption but don’t actually harm others then there’s something clearly quite wrong with the point we’ve got to in our democratic free speech society. It’s all great being told how safe we’ll now be with these cameras but now you’ve got a small group of people essentially playing god with the rest of the population and it’s even more difficult for the population to push back against the government when it needs to. When right and wrong is clear it’s very useful but it won’t ways be used for that. Mass surveillance, heavy control and anyone that says otherwise or complains can be found and shut down swiftly easily because some people are more right than others. It all seems a bit dystopian
Perhaps the police in this country should go back to a beat model of policing. Get out and about in the communities and find out who’s who, instead of relying on technology to do it. The police should be pro-active in stopping crime and not just bothering when it’s already happened.
There’s always a balance here.
Of course, people want prolific offenders caught, but facial recognition isn’t a magic fix, as people have been saying; it still throws up false matches, and it won’t replace proper neighbourhood policing. I think it is fair to say that people want both. Visible police who know the community, and tech that’s used carefully, with proper oversight.