Live data from Hacker News

Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

news.sky.com

61–70 of 636 posts

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#61
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment you're replying to isn't greatly helpful, but neither is yours. Rotherham alone, a town of ~250k people, had an estimated 1,400 victims. Then there's Rochdale, Oxford, Telford, Huddersfield, Derby...

Yes, it's well known that UK police and politicians have abused children at scale, hence why Saville was able to get away with what he did. He was protected by the crown. There are even pictures of Ghislane Maxwell and Kevin Spacey sitting on the throne (can google it).

The grooming gangs in those towns consisted of men from a variety of occupations, though a clear pattern was the involvement of takeaways and taxi firms. The involvement of police and politicians was mostly limited to denial, dismissal, and cover-up.

Although there have been individual allegations against local politicians[1] and police[2], they do little to help your case here. There certainly were thousands of victims, and I'm not clear why you'd deny that.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/26/rotherham-gr...

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn9y0lvpyqvo

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#62
Sao Paulo (the city) just rolled out facial recognition for police bikes, too, despite evidence showing[0] the program doesn't reduce criminality. Smart Sampa even has a feature where you can become a snitch yourself, lending your camera spot to the network... Great stuff

[0]: https://g1.globo.com/sp/sao-paulo/noticia/2025/08/01/reconhe... (don't know how to link a translated page)

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#63

In itself this is a storm in a teacup. The important question, only important question IMHO, is how they handle positives. Do they go all guns blazing and arrest the person on the spot? Or do they use a restrained approach and first nicely ask the person if they have any ID, etc? That's the important bit.

Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 means authorities can request encryption keys (passwords) from you and you can't say no.

Investigatory Powers Act 2016 literally nicknamed Snoopers' Charter. Means ISPs keep all your traffic for minimum a year, police are given access to it, but politicians are exempt and need a warrant to have their data viewed?!?!?

UK police have been rolling out Live Facial Recognition in London and Wales for the last few years. Seven new regions are being added. 10 new vans coming in.

Supermarkets are using facial recognition to keep a database of people they deem criminals.

UK tried to make Apple put in a backdoor to its encrypted storage. Apple removed the ability for UK citizens to use that feature.

Online Safety Act forced online services to implement age verification for "adult" content. Many niche forums closed down because they would face large fines and jail time if they didn't comply. Larger businesses offloaded this requirement onto third party companies so now if you want to see "adult" content online you need to share your face or bank details or government ID with a random third party likely from a different country.

None of the major political parties care about digital rights and in fact want MORE surveillance.

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose it depends on what it's used for. We could trust the government to be good, but governments are made from people, elected by people. And people are often shitbags to each other. For all the CCTV in London I've been mugged twice and nothing was captured on CCTV nor were the police all that interested in doing anything about it. As an outsider living here I think the UK has huge social problems that are neglect…

I commented about this on another thread, and probably most around here disagree with my general point there, but this fact amazes me. We have gotten all this tech creating a surveillance state but then it isn't even used to give better policing. You will just get mugged on camera by someone with ten prior charges and then be ignored by police.

[flagged]

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#65

In itself this is a storm in a teacup. The important question, only important question IMHO, is how they handle positives. Do they go all guns blazing and arrest the person on the spot? Or do they use a restrained approach and first nicely ask the person if they have any ID, etc? That's the important bit.

Then what happens if you don't have ID on you (which, for now, is entirely legal in the UK)? What if you're hours from home? Do you then need to completely cancel your day to spend it with the cops instead satisfy some shit algorithm that misidentified you as some known threat? What if you refuse to cooperate because you have better things to do than waste your time with the police? I'm sure that'll go well for you.…

What happens when a police constable thinks they recognise you from evidence they have in an investigation or a wanted person notice?

This is nothing new. It is all about what is reasonable in the circumstances.

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#66
post #22

The UK is quickly deploying surveillance state technology that people once decried China for. Whether or not this is ethical or useful, I wish the hypocrisy would be acknowledged. The OSA, the Apple encryption demands, LFR, …, it’s clearly a trend. Has society really become this dangerous that we must deploy these things?

No the world is actually much much safer especially in these first world countries.

However our society is now flooded with Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt campaigns that foreigners, terrorists, criminals, are out to get you.

This creates the dellusion that all these security companies are here to help and protect us. Really it's just politicians handing out tax money to private corporations (cronyism) for no improvement to security or life. But at least you'll tell yourself you feel safer because of it.

These disgusting corporations run by wealthy people want to make everything a TSA line, because they think you are cattle.

It means everyone suffers and your 4th Amendment is taken away (in US).

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#67
post #56

It appears that the kosher way of doing this by US standards is to partner with a for-profit company(ehm Palantir, Meta, Google etc.) to do it for you or you become a surveillance state. Not saying to bash on US, it's just a curiosity of mine. In a similar way USA&UK diverge from most EU by not issuing national ID cards and not having central resident registries but then having powerful surveillance organizations tha…

Honestly a pretty good point, the US already has "facial recognition vans" on the road in the form of Waymos that will provide video to police upon request. In most states, I think police could also just buy a Tesla, have an officer drive it around and set up a system to continuously upload video to a facial recognition service.

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#68

The UK is broke but has infinite money for a surveillance state.

One justification for increased surveillance is that it is cheaper than hiring police officers.

Is it if equipment maintenance and building/installing costs keep going up?

Replacing police officers is about removing a human decision element from lower class suppression.

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#70
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I commented about this on another thread, and probably most around here disagree with my general point there, but this fact amazes me. We have gotten all this tech creating a surveillance state but then it isn't even used to give better policing. You will just get mugged on camera by someone with ten prior charges and then be ignored by police.

[flagged]

That's not true whatsoever for the UK, the police barely respond to shoplifting.
Post reply on HN