Metropolitan Police now using facial recognition in central London
After two years of testing, facial recognition is now live
London’s Metropolitan Police is now using live facial recognition technology in central London. Operating from vans equipped with NEC's NeoFace system they scans passers-by and compare their faces against a watchlist.
"It's alarming to see biometric mass surveillance being rolled out in London. Never before have citizens been subjected to identity checks without suspicion, let alone on a mass scale.
"All the evidence shows this tech makes us less free and no safer. The 93 per cent misidentification rate poses a serious threat to innocent members of the public. The cost to our liberties, let alone the public purse, is unacceptably high.
"We're appalled that Sadiq Khan has approved such useless, dangerous and authoritarian surveillance technology for London. This undemocratic expansion of the surveillance state must be reversed." – Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch
The Register: London's Metropolitan Police flip the switch: Smile, fellow citizens... you're undergoing Live Facial Recognition