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

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

#143
post #3

The couple of times I’ve even done as little as fly through Heathrow it has been apparent to me that the UK is on its way to becoming an unfettered surveillance state, and I never hear anyone talking about it.

You say "on its way" as if it hasn't been at the forefront of this for decades. Until China and post-9/11 US ramped up facial recognition and CCTV projects MASSIVELY, the UK didn't just have more CCTV units per capita than anywhere else on Earth, they had the most in absolute terms. Even now last I checked the UK has about 1 camera for every 11 people.

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

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the recent policy, technical leaps, and innovation around policing seem to be focused on cracking down on protesting and speech, and not really on what people would consider "fighting crime". You could get mugged on the street corner in broad daylight (or worse) and the police won't even answer your phone call, but the minute you show up on that street corner with 10 friends carrying signs and shouting, 20 office…

The purpose of the system (the police in this casse) is what it does. Always been that way, always will be. It's just a little harder to bury your head in the sand than it used to be.

the purpose of circular logic is circular logic

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

#145
If it's used to track folks out on bail or already convicted of violent crimes then great. However seeing what the UK police are like right now it's likely to be applied to harass genteel retirees protesting about Israeli barbarity in Palestine.

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

#146

> The government also insists the tech is independently tested at the National Physical Laboratory, which found the underlying algorithm to be accurate and free of age, gender, or ethnicity-related bias. I feel so much better! /sarcasm How tone deaf can they be? Whenever there are serious privacy concerns about how this sort of technology, you have a statement like attached. It doesn't address what people are worried…

Well there had been system with very high rates of false positives for certain ethnicities which if wide scale deployed would in effect be like systematic harassment of this people.

So it is a thing people which in general are okay with mass surveillance might worried about.

And convincing the people you have a chance to convince is much more useful the pointlessly trying to convince the people which anyway won't like what you do no matter what you say.

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

#147
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small mindedness (to use your words, though I think other sets of words are perhaps more descripitive) is a condition that spreads like the plague. If you don't constantly stamp it out through ostracizing and marginalizing the infected and those who intentionally create the conditions for it then you will be overrun.

Are your ideas not good enough to persuade?

Good ideas don't have to be persuassive to be good

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

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, very informative. > " In the UK you don't have to provide ID when asked " Well if you are suspected of a crime they can arrest you if you refuse to identify yourself. I 'suspect' that being flagged by this system counts as such if you match someone who is wanted or similar.

You can't make an arrest on the basis of refusal to verify identity, unless a specific law is in play, or the Police officer has proof you are lying. If the police have probable cause to suspect you've committed an actual crime, then you have to ID yourself, you are entitled to know what crime you are suspected of. Yes, facial recognition does count, but it has to be a high confidence match >0.7, verified by a police…

> You can't make an arrest on the basis of refusal to verify identity, unless a specific law is in play, or the Police officer has proof you are lying

> If the police have probable cause to suspect you've committed an actual crime, then you have to ID yourself, you are entitled to know what crime you are suspected of

It's always been my impression that this kind of ambiguous phrasing combined with the power imbalance gives the public absolutely no protection whatsoever. Let's say you don't want to provide ID: the copper could come up with some vague excuse for why they stopped you / want your ID. Good luck arguing with that

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

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what Western governments miss: China didn’t get rich from its surveillance state - it got rich from manufacturing, much of it handed to them by the West. If we were serious about prosperity, we’d be copying their industrial base, not their domestic spying. But rebuilding skills and factories is hard; building tools to monitor and manage a population in decline is easy - and far more entertaining for a state t…

> If we were serious about prosperity, we’d be copying their industrial base, Why would we work down the prosperity chain? There's a pretty clear prosperity heirarchy in the world economy and the financing/services dominant economies are ahead of the manufacturing economies who are ahead of the ag/raw materials economies. Yeah, industrialization has been important for China’s recent development just as it was for the…

That “hierarchy” only works if the foundations stay intact. A service/finance economy without domestic manufacturing is like a skyscraper with no lower floors - great view until the support gives way. Manufacturing isn’t just a rung you discard, it’s strategic infrastructure. Lose it and you become dependent on those “lower tier” nations for essentials - and your position in the hierarchy is theirs to decide.

And participation in the service economy isn’t even open to everyone. In the UK, a working-class person can’t just start a small service business - IR35 and similar rules ensure they can’t make a profit. The rich have captured both the economy and policymaking, shifting into pure wealth extraction mode. Everything gets more expensive, ordinary people get poorer, and with no stake in production or ownership, there’s no one left to buy the services the “upper tier” depends on. Western capitalism is eating itself.

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

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no small irony that facial recognition isn't going to recognise the faces of those currently racing around on e-bikes stealing phones wearing their 'safety balaclavas'. Or, indeed, some of the more militant protesters that are turning up all over the place. It's a cliche, but if you have nothing to hide, and intend to protest peacefully, why are you covering your face?

> It's a cliche, but if you have nothing to hide, and intend to protest peacefully, why are you covering your face? because who says the state (and the people acting for it, e.g. police) are always the good guys there is a VERY long history of people being systematically harassed and persecuted for things which really shouldn't be an issue, and might not have been illegal either (but then the moment a state becomes t…

> like just looking at the UK, they e.g. "thanked" Alan Turing for his war contributions by driving him into Suicide because he was gay

Well. Maybe[0].

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18561092

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