Jake Hurfurt, Head of Research & Investigations at Big Brother Watch, said: “Biometric ID checks should not be a condition for walking down any high street in Britain. Shoppers in Croydon have been treated like human guinea pigs with the police using surveillance cameras that are rarely seen outside of authoritarian regimes. Elsewhere in London, facial recognition technology has already resulted in false arrests and even someone being wrongly hauled into court.1
“We all want the police to catch wanted criminals, but the Met’s statistics today mask the many officer hours behind each arrest and huge resources that the force puts into facial recognition over more proportionate, traditional policing.2
“Strict safeguards restricting live facial recognition to the most serious cases are long overdue. The technology has never been voted on in Parliament and there is no law explicitly regulating its use. 3
“The Met Police and the Home Office must end this experimental dystopia and halt all use of LFR technology across the UK at least until the millions of innocent members of the public have safeguards around its use”.
Notes:
- Spokespeople are available for interview – please contact 07730439257 or info@bigbrotherwatch.org.uk
- Footnotes:
1 – AI BLUNDER Roofer, 59, arrested after facial recognition cameras wrongly identified him as bloke who stole £300 of IKEA furniture2 – Q9, Are LFR deployments more efficient than traditional policing?
3- Police use of live facial recognition technology, House of Commons Library