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London Police Deploy Facial Recognition at Protest for First Time

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Re: London Police Deploy Facial Recognition at Protest for First Time

#31

Post by KaiserPro »

stavros wrote: post #2

Wow, that's... quite the precedent. Presumably this is a Reform UK event, which I'm not a fan of, but still, I don't think this escalation of surveillance will end well. The article says that drones "will scan the faces of suspects", suspects of what exactly? What crime has been committed that they suspect people for?

> this is a Reform UK event

No, its a Tommy Robinson (not his real name) event. Whilst the venn diagram shows crossover in policy and beliefs, its not actually a reform demo.

I am uneasy about the facial recognition being used here. In terms of actual differences to how "oh shit this is going to be a violent one" protests are actually policed is not that much. There are mobile CCTV units that are deployed with plods being issued cameras to record people doing stupid shit.

However, given what happened last time he organised an event like this, I can see why it might be argued that its proportionate to deploy facial recognition. I still don't like it.

Re: London Police Deploy Facial Recognition at Protest for First Time

#32

Post by KaiserPro »

phyzix5761 wrote: post #11

The UK is one of the most effective and longest running surveillance states so this should not be a surprise to anyone.

> most effective

I mean its not. Plus with the court backlogs rising, the chances of you getting convicted are rapidly diminishing

Re: London Police Deploy Facial Recognition at Protest for First Time

#33

Post by KaiserPro »

Leonard_of_Q wrote: post #29

[flagged]

> OK, London Police, how about doing the same with the recurring 'pro-Palestine' manifestations?

The Palestine Action demos are far easier to police, because its a proscribed group, anyone expressing support for them are instantly nicked. Hence why there are something like >2000 arrests.

Now one could argue that this is an affront to freedom of speech, but given the way you've written this I suspect that you might not agree with me.

> 'two-tier justice' in the UK, a record which launched people like 'Tommy Robinson' (a pseudonym hence the quotes) into the spotlight

I would strongly contest that the justice system launched him. Given that he founded the EDL, and spent most of the time headbutting people, I would say he's famous because of the work he put in, to be famous.

Side note: its the Met, not london police, and the police are distinct and separate from the courts

Re: London Police Deploy Facial Recognition at Protest for First Time

#34

Post by Vaslo »

cjs_ac wrote: post #27

> Live facial recognition will scan the faces of those heading to the “Unite the Kingdom, Unite the West” rally in the borough of Camden, marking the first time the technology has been authorized for use at a protest in the UK. The rally was organized by activist Tommy Robinson who says the rally is for “national unity, free speech and Christian values.” Let's have a look at Tommy Robinson's Wikipedia article*: > Rob…

[flagged]

Re: London Police Deploy Facial Recognition at Protest for First Time

#35

Post by krona »

suburban_strike wrote: post #25
krona wrote: post #15

Perhaps it will be the first protest where FR is used, but the first pilot (which ended in March) just put 2 FR cameras on a street in Croydon and they arrested "170 wanted criminals" in 6 months. https://news.met.police.uk/news/met-makes-one-arrest-every-3...

This is a bit of an oversell on their part. The offenses include: > A 36-year-old woman who had been unlawfully at large for more than 20 years and was wanted for failing to appeal at court for an assault in 2004. > A 31-year-old man who was wanted for voyeurism for more than six months. > A 41-year-old man who was wanted for rape in relation to an incident which took place in November in Croydon. > 37 arrests for br…

I'm not sure what your argument is since the police enforce the law as it is, not as it should be. "Without fear or favour."

> The ISIS-linked kid that bombed Manchester Arena was known to every intelligence agency and was even physically stopped by venue security before being released due to concerns about racism in enforcement.

The bureaucratic solution to situations like the Arena bombing is to remove human judgment and replace it with 4k video analytics. The technology already exists. I don't like it either but if there is ever a way to remove decision making power from a person by means of technology or process, the bureaucracy will gleefully use it.

Re: London Police Deploy Facial Recognition at Protest for First Time

#36

Post by oliwarner »

suburban_strike wrote: post #25
krona wrote: post #15

Perhaps it will be the first protest where FR is used, but the first pilot (which ended in March) just put 2 FR cameras on a street in Croydon and they arrested "170 wanted criminals" in 6 months. https://news.met.police.uk/news/met-makes-one-arrest-every-3...

This is a bit of an oversell on their part. The offenses include: > A 36-year-old woman who had been unlawfully at large for more than 20 years and was wanted for failing to appeal at court for an assault in 2004. > A 31-year-old man who was wanted for voyeurism for more than six months. > A 41-year-old man who was wanted for rape in relation to an incident which took place in November in Croydon. > 37 arrests for br…

> Most of these are misdemeanors.

That's a very poor read. Most of these look like breaches of previous conviction release terms. Failure to appear isn't a non-issue. It's a bail skip to dodge a conviction.

I'll agree they're not fresh murders, but if you don't enforce the terms of a release on licence, it makes it a joke, and more importantly puts the public at risk.

Re: London Police Deploy Facial Recognition at Protest for First Time

#37

Post by 4ndrewl »

hactually wrote: post #3
stavros wrote: post #2

Wow, that's... quite the precedent. Presumably this is a Reform UK event, which I'm not a fan of, but still, I don't think this escalation of surveillance will end well. The article says that drones "will scan the faces of suspects", suspects of what exactly? What crime has been committed that they suspect people for?

Must be some heinous crimes to enable dragnet surveillance. That or the rotten state of Britain really is trying anything from splitting at the seams. Must be the heinous crime thing tho.

Or maybe it's just that whenever Tommy ten names has one of his rallies it ends in violence?

Re: London Police Deploy Facial Recognition at Protest for First Time

#38

Post by multjoy »

Vaslo wrote: post #34
cjs_ac wrote: post #27

> Live facial recognition will scan the faces of those heading to the “Unite the Kingdom, Unite the West” rally in the borough of Camden, marking the first time the technology has been authorized for use at a protest in the UK. The rally was organized by activist Tommy Robinson who says the rally is for “national unity, free speech and Christian values.” Let's have a look at Tommy Robinson's Wikipedia article*: > Rob…

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: London Police Deploy Facial Recognition at Protest for First Time

#39

Post by Joker_vD »

KaiserPro wrote: post #32
phyzix5761 wrote: post #11

The UK is one of the most effective and longest running surveillance states so this should not be a surprise to anyone.

> most effective I mean its not. Plus with the court backlogs rising, the chances of you getting convicted are rapidly diminishing

> the court backlogs rising

Well, I guess they'll have to raise the custody time limits to something more reasonable then, like a year or so. I mean, as long as you get a trial eventually, this is fine, right?

Re: London Police Deploy Facial Recognition at Protest for First Time

#40

Post by Gigachad »

fidotron wrote: post #14

I'm old enough to remember when my colleagues were vigourously expressing concern about the potential for Oyster cards to be used to track who was protesting where. What remains astounding about the UK is how few people benefit from this enormous scale privacy invasion. David Cameron, while leader of the opposition, managed to get his bike stolen twice, and neither time did CCTV being literally everywhere help to fin…

There isn’t the resources to watch all of this cctv. Sure someone could spend weeks watching all the feeds in the city to track the thief down. But the cost quickly exceeds the value of the bike.

Something that’s changing with computer video and AI powered video search tools. I’m very in two minds about it. Being able to solve bike thefts would be great, but a lot of evil could come from a system that actually can monitor and sort through all this video.

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