Anonymous
ID: Tj7wXTs/
8/25/2025, 9:08:58 PM No.513969178
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/uks-mass-facial-recognition-roll-010950562.html
Outside supermarkets or in festival crowds, millions are now having their features scanned by real-time facial-recognition systems in the UK -- the only European country to deploy the technology on a large scale.
At London's Notting Hill Carnival, where two million people are expected to celebrate Afro-Caribbean culture over Sunday and Monday, facial-recognition cameras are being deployed near entrances and exits.
The police said their objective was to identify and intercept wanted individuals by scanning faces in large crowds and comparing them with thousands of fugitive thought criminals already in the police database.
The technology was first tested in 2016 and its use has increased considerably over the past three years in the United Kingdom.
Some 4.7 million faces were scanned in 2024 alone, according to the NGO Liberty.
But such mass data capture on the streets of London, also seen during the coronation of King Charles III in 2023, "treats us like a nation of suspects", said the Big Brother Watch organisation.
"There is no legislative basis, so we have no safeguards to protect our rights, and the police is left to write its own rules," Rebecca Vincent, its interim director, told AFP.
Apart from a few cases in the United States, "we do not see anything even close in European countries or other democracies", stressed Vincent.
"The use of such invasive tech is more akin to what we see in authoritarian states such as China," she added.
Outside supermarkets or in festival crowds, millions are now having their features scanned by real-time facial-recognition systems in the UK -- the only European country to deploy the technology on a large scale.
At London's Notting Hill Carnival, where two million people are expected to celebrate Afro-Caribbean culture over Sunday and Monday, facial-recognition cameras are being deployed near entrances and exits.
The police said their objective was to identify and intercept wanted individuals by scanning faces in large crowds and comparing them with thousands of fugitive thought criminals already in the police database.
The technology was first tested in 2016 and its use has increased considerably over the past three years in the United Kingdom.
Some 4.7 million faces were scanned in 2024 alone, according to the NGO Liberty.
But such mass data capture on the streets of London, also seen during the coronation of King Charles III in 2023, "treats us like a nation of suspects", said the Big Brother Watch organisation.
"There is no legislative basis, so we have no safeguards to protect our rights, and the police is left to write its own rules," Rebecca Vincent, its interim director, told AFP.
Apart from a few cases in the United States, "we do not see anything even close in European countries or other democracies", stressed Vincent.
"The use of such invasive tech is more akin to what we see in authoritarian states such as China," she added.
Replies:
