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London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

btp.police.uk

211–220 of 270 posts

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#211
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point with those supermarket cameras is to influence behaviour, not to surveil, I doubt they are even recording. When I was a kid (maybe in a worse area than you) there were CRT TVs by entrances of supermarkets showing a live feed of you walking in. People behave differently when they feel they are being watched, it's why they have creepy CCTV posters with big eyes on them. Probably the same reason for ev…

Yes, this has been under consideration when thinking just how much raw footage would have to be stored for 4 or more self-checkout cameras for every shop. Probably multiple terabytes per day, per chain, just for London. There is also the classic 'plastic camera with blinking LED' CCTV installation, intended to deter theft in a more lo-fi manner. As an aside, the artist John Baldessari made an installation in the Tate…

Terabytes for an entire chain isn't that much, actually?

Here's a good reference point: if you have one hard drive per camera, and record at 1Mbps, you can store 5 years of footage.

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the country that can´t stop dingy boats...this despite journalists always being able to be there on time to take pictures for the Daily Mail...

All right, mate, let's hear your plan for securing the UK's south-eastern coastline.

If Daily Mail journalist can be there on time to photograph the boats, the authorities could spend less time in the pub, and make some arrests...

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#213
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would that work? Easiest way to stop protests is to block off the area of the planned protest and arrest people who try to enter it. It’s not clear to me how facial recognition on the tube would help from a practical point or view. Also, this seems to just be a trial expanding existing time and location scoped deployments of live facial recognition into a new environment, rather than a trial run for always-on liv…

Identify attendees and key figures from social media → pick them up when detected on public transport. The real issue is not (just) this specific use case, rather it's the govt generally knowing where people are going and where they have historically been.

If they can ID them they can go to where they live. The gov has records of its population

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#214
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be fine. Most Brits are comfortable with the poor quality of Orwell commentary from over the pond. American Orwell fans mostly don't even read his key novels like Keep the Aspadistra Flying, just his juvenile science fiction stuff.

Demoting Orwell's masterpieces (1984 and Animal Farm) to "juvenile science fiction stuff" while holding up Keep the Aspidistra Flying—a mid-tier social realism novel about a middle-class poet struggling with commercialism—is top-tier British condescension (extra points for misspelling Aspidistra while doing so).

How else can you keep ahead of the bots and their em-dashes other than by the use of pointless condescension and subtle misspellings? I mean, you've got to find a niche somehow.

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps facial recognition would have saved him? It's not like humans are 100% accurate as this demonstrates

Or perhaps facial recognition would leave even less time for decision making. Someone who's face resembles that of a known terrorist was detected entering the station 8 seconds ago. He's carrying a backpack and will be on a crowded platform in 37 seconds time. There are armed police in the ticket hall. What do you do? Only 31 seconds now...

There are armed police in the ticket hall. What do you do? Only 31 seconds now...

Is the suspect black?

(I'm asking this because there is evidence suggesting current facial recognition technology is less accurate at matching faces from some demographics, including black people. Why, what did you think I meant?)

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#216

Britain is the original Orwellian society!! They even practice DoubleSpeak and DoubleThink in Blighty, especially in government and parliamentary circles.

It will be fine. Most Brits are comfortable with the poor quality of Orwell commentary from over the pond. American Orwell fans mostly don't even read his key novels like Keep the Aspadistra Flying, just his juvenile science fiction stuff.

I'm a huge fan of Eric Blair's writing. Looking at the bookshelf now: "Down and out in Paris and London" is what I've reread the most (I've got two copies, one ready for gifting).

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#217
post #53

It’s a moot point. I’m saddened at the invasion of privacy and the intrusion on an individual’s civil liberties, but anonymous travel on the London Underground died when they made bank cards and contactless the primary way to get through the barriers. I’m not saying that “this doesn’t matter because it’s slightly worse than before”. I’m saying the frog has been boiling for a long time. I don’t want people being surpr…

And the thing that absolutely fucks me off about all of this, is that we don't even get a lawful society in exchange for all of this. On one hand, there's no privacy anywhere. On the other - have your car stolen or a bike? House broken into? Phone snatched out of your hands? Good luck getting anyone to care about this in the slightest. You'd think with all the surveillance tech we'd be living in a nightmare panoptico…

I think it's even worse than that. If at some remote possibility that a criminal does get caught and charged with a crime, the prisons are full (37% foreign criminals [0]) so they won't do any prison time, and therefore no justice is served. In fact our prisons are so full, violent criminals are being let out after serving only their half term [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_prison_populati...

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyrkz9ryr5o

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#218

Britain is the original Orwellian society!! They even practice DoubleSpeak and DoubleThink in Blighty, especially in government and parliamentary circles.

It will be fine. Most Brits are comfortable with the poor quality of Orwell commentary from over the pond. American Orwell fans mostly don't even read his key novels like Keep the Aspadistra Flying, just his juvenile science fiction stuff.

[deleted]

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oyster is still anonymous, in the sense that no details are required to buy a card, and it can be topped up using cash. The cards can be returned or disposed of as necessary. But as you say, it knows your movements at least in so far as your entry and exit point in the system, with a timestamp, though you can use a separate card for each if you don't mind paying the full fare that gets charged when a journey is 'inco…

If people would not steal stuff from shops, the shops would not need cameras. We get the society our behavior creates.

If I wanted to steal something, surely I'd do it before getting to the self checkout counter.
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