Responding to news that the Home Office is planning to expand the use of facial recognition in the UK, Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch said:
“It’s disturbing and deeply undemocratic that the Government is planning to expand facial recognition surveillance in the UK. This is an Orwellian mass surveillance tool rarely seen outside of Russia and China and has absolutely no place in Britain. The Government has no mandate at all to do this and the fact that the rest of the democratic world is legislating to ban live facial recognition surveillance shows just how backwards the Home Office’s approach to this is.
“Live facial recognition has the potential to invade the privacy of millions of Brits and turn us into walking ID cards living in a surveillance state. It is totally unnecessary, unConservative and unBritish, and the Policing Minister would do best to focus on fixing our broken law enforcement rather than spending taxpayers’ money on dystopian, experimental software.”
ENDS
Notes:
Spokespeople are available for interviews. Contact Big Brother Watch’s 24h media line on 07730439257 or email info@bigbrotherwatch.org.uk
You can find a copy of the Home Office’s release here.
You can find more information regarding live facial recognition on Big Brother Watch’s website.