People up and down the country are being falsely flagged as criminals by facial recognition cameras.
Following two cases of misidentification in Manchester and London, digital rights NGO Big Brother Watch have launched legal action against Facewatch, a private company providing facial recognition technology and Met Police to seek justice for the two victims respectively.
In the first case, a teenager shopping at a Home Bargains store in Manchester was falsely flagged as a shoplifter by a facial recognition system provided by Facewatch. She was left in tears and had said that she had never stolen in her life before.
In a second case, a community worker, Shaun Thompson, was pulled up and held for thirty minutes by Met Police after he was misidentified as a criminal by facial recognition on his way home near London Bridge.
Thompson said: “Facial recognition is like stop and search on steroids and doesn’t make communities any safer. It needs to be stopped.”
Biometric Update: Facewatch, Met police face lawsuits after facial recognition misidentification