05 May Face recognition tech at coronation condemned by campaigners as a ‘waste of resources’
POLICE use of facial recognition technology during the coronation means that hundreds of thousands of people will effectively be participating in an identity parade, a civil rights campaigner has said.
Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, told GB News: “We should be incredibly worried about this.
“We’ll all be expecting there to be effective policing over the weekend and I don’t think anyone would underestimate the challenges, but the problem with live facial recognition surveillance is not only is it dangerously authoritarian but it’s also dangerously inaccurate.
“The Metropolitan Police’s facial recognition flags have been 86% inaccurate since they started using the tech, so what we’ll see is a wasting of police resources whilst also turning London on what should be a very important day into something that looks more like Beijing.”
In a discussion with Jacob Rees-Mogg, she continued: “It really is the kind of thing that would make Orwell roll in his grave and unfortunately the Government has allowed this to go on for far too long.
“Millions of pounds are being spent on technology that is very dystopian, very intrusive, and that means that all of the hundreds of thousands of people that will be going out on the weekend will effectively be being put in a high-tech police line-up.
“Now if this event were happening in Russia, you might not be surprised, if it were happening in China, you might not be surprised.
“It’s happening in England, it’s happening in London in what is supposed to be the heart of our democracy.”
She added: “Hundreds of thousands of people will basically be going through an identity check.
“It’s a very important principle in the UK that a police officer cannot ask for your identity unless you have done something wrong, and this technology flips that position on its head.”
