Privacy International (PI) has published a blog article following the parliamentary debate on police use of facial recognition technology (FRT) on Wednesday, 13 November 2024. While commending the debate as a significant and positive development, PI highlighted the importance of capitalising on this momentum, calling for further parliamentary discussions in order to bring forward legislative proposals that would place restrictions and establish safeguards governing the application of FRT by law enforcement.
To support this aim, PI wrote to the MPs who participated in the debate, requesting that they pose written or oral questions to key government officials, including the Prime Minister, Home Secretary, and the Minister for Policing.
A related article in The Telegraph (£) looks at the new era of precision policing with the increasing use of facial recognition technology (FRT). The technology has been employed by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) since 2016 but has recently increased its use. MPS Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley hailed FRT as a groundbreaking policing tool comparable to fingerprinting, highlighting its accuracy and fairness. The technology uses live camera feeds analysed by artificial intelligence (AI) developed by the Japanese company NEC to match faces against a watch list of wanted individuals, prompting alerts for officers to investigate. Each facial match is given a similarity score. A score above 0.64 is likely to be a suspect.
While police claim that FRT is effective in apprehending dangerous offenders, concerns over privacy remain. Advocacy groups Big Brother Watch and Liberty criticise its effect on society and the lack of regulation governing its use. Despite this, public support for FRT is high, with a recent YouGov poll showing 57% approval for its deployment in public spaces.
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