London’s Met Police is splashing out on facial recognition technology, significantly expanding it’s surveillance capabilities. New Retrospective Facial Recognition technology will enable the force to process historic images from CCTV feeds, social media and other sources to track suspects.
“In the US, we have seen people being wrongly jailed thanks to RFR,” says Silkie Carlo, director of civil liberties group Big Brother Watch. “A wider public conversation and strict safeguards are vital before even contemplating an extreme technology like this, but the Mayor of London has continued to support expensive, pointless and rights-abusive police technologies.”