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Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas [OT]

Cross-posted to 3 groups.

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Philip Herlihy <nothing@invalid.com> wrote:
> In article <20260703192021.83cab79890ea2e7e2e7949c1@dizum.com>, 
> nobody@none.invalid says...
>> 
>> People in London will all be in one big jail!
>> 
>> https://www.youtube.com/shorts/j_haVCMrX4U
> 
> This is something I know about, as I work closely with our local police 
> in North East London.
> 
> Yes, it's reasonable to have some concerns about a technology like this.  
> The sort of society we want won't be tracking ordinary citizens as they 
> go about their daily lives.  But we do want to stop criminals messing up 
> those daily lives.
> 
> The key distinction between "Big Brother State" and "reasonable 
> vigilance" is the issue of how you get on a 'watchlist'.  If the cameras 
> are 'harvesting' images and saving them, that would go beyond what the 
> vast majority of British people would want, or tolerate.  But that's not 
> what's happening here.
> 
> The cameras do recognise what appear to be faces, capture images of them 
> (most likely in RAM rather than persistant storage) and scan them 
> against a pre-existing watchlist, which will have images of people 
> already wanted (e.g. people wanted for recall to prison for breaching 
> license conditions).
> 
> If a match is suggested, the image captured is then stored, and sent 
> with the watchlist image it potentially matches, to a nearby police 
> officer.  If he/she is satisfied there's a likely match, he/she will 
> speak to the individual concerned to establish identity, using existing 
> legal powers to "stop and account".  The system plays no further part in 
> this.
> 
> If a match is not found, or is rejected by the officer, it is discarded 
> and deleted if it has been temporarily stored - it is of no use to the 
> police at this point.  I'm not sure if images which generate verified 
> matches are stored - but once an officer has verified identity they 
> aren't likely to be of any significance (I'll ask one day!).  Compare 
> that with routine CCTV, where your image may be stored for days, weeks 
> or years.
> 
> The system works well, and usually generates a number of arrests of 
> people who are will necessarily be already wanted - or their image would 
> not be in the watchlist.

Does it work well, though? As far as I an aware, no scientific studies have
been done on the actual system using real-world scenarios. The underlying
technology does work under controlled conditions, but we do know it is very
susceptible to bias - both positive and negative - that exists in training
data. 

This also ignores the growing "blind spot" that any automated system makes
and AI exacerbates. These systems are designed to find those the police are
aware about and unintentionally, but exaggerate, hiding those they aren't. 

Given we know that the Met is "institutionally racist" you can guarantee
that the system will be very accurate at matching black and asian persons
of interest whilst also making many false positives. This is because that
population are much more likely to end up in databases. White POIs will be
able to fly under the radar. 

> The systems are made very conspicuous, with signs on nearby streets 
> warning of their (temporary) presence - personally I think that's 
> unnecessary.

All it does is encourage youths in hoodies and balaclavas. Reducing
effectiveness of policing in the long term. 

> The system is functionally equivalent to a police officer happening to 
> recognise someone from a mugshot seen inside the police station - no 
> more,no less.

Which we know that is very, very bad. Bundling that into AI continues the
badness. 

> Now I'm sure Joe Conspiracy will be on here mumbling something about how 
> the vaccinations turn us all into transgender as soon as the 5g is 
> switched on, 

Now let's not conflate genuine and well-reasoned concern with crackpot
conspiracy theories. They are far from equivalent. Dismissing both on the
same terms is disingenuous. 

> but those of less febrile disposition can learn more about 
> the system here:
> 
> https://www.met.police.uk/police-forces/metropolitan-police/areas/about-
> us/about-the-met/facial-recognition-technology/
> 
> For reference, I chair a local panel representing the views of residents 
> to the Metropolitan Police, and have done for the last 25 years.  It's 
> right to ask searching questions about things like this, but it's also 
> right to listen to the answers.

When the answers are dismissive and don't actually address the questions
isa good reason why they aren't going away. 

Being a chair representing the public for *25 years* sounds like you're
institutionalised and you're less a member of the public then a member of
the police. Your comment regarding signage being unnecessary points to
this. 

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Thread

All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas User 7of9 <nobody@none.invalid> - 2026-07-03 19:20 +0000
  Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas Chris in Makati <mail@nospam.com> - 2026-07-03 21:53 +0100
    Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas User 7of9 <nobody@none.invalid> - 2026-07-03 22:09 +0000
      Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2026-07-04 00:05 -0400
  Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-07-04 13:10 +0800
  Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas  [OT] Philip Herlihy <nothing@invalid.com> - 2026-07-04 12:13 +0100
    Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas  [OT] "Kerr-Mudd, John" <admin@127.0.0.1> - 2026-07-04 16:24 +0100
      Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas  [OT] Fritz Wuehler <fritz@spamexpire-202607.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> - 2026-07-04 18:46 +0200
    Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas [OT] Chris <ithinkiam@gmail.com> - 2026-07-05 09:01 +0000
      Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas [OT] Philip Herlihy <nothing@invalid.com> - 2026-07-05 15:08 +0100
        Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas User 7of9 <nobody@none.invalid> - 2026-07-05 17:51 +0000
    Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas [OT] Fritz Wuehler <fritz@spamexpire-202607.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> - 2026-07-13 17:57 +0200
      Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas [OT] "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-07-14 01:24 +0800
      Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas [OT] Philip Herlihy <nothing@invalid.com> - 2026-07-14 15:03 +0100
        Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas [OT] Chris <ithinkiam@gmail.com> - 2026-07-14 19:12 +0000
          Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas [OT] Philip Herlihy <nothing@invalid.com> - 2026-07-15 15:43 +0100
  Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-07-06 09:54 +0800
  Re: All Of London Facial Recognition By Christmas "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-07-06 09:55 +0800

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