There are a lot of things going on that I find interesting. But one that has caught my attention is the realization that surveillance is a profitable business.
Live facial recognition deployments cost a lot of money. Just in Cardiff alone the police spent 3 million pounds in this technology. And they have more than 25 police officers and with brand new iPads surveilling people in real time. (I was there.)
Imagine how much money they're going to spend in London now. So besides the obvious human rights related questions, the other not so obvious one is: Who is getting these contracts? Where is that money going?
For less than 50 deployments in the small Cardiff City? That's a lot of dough. They were simple tests. Now in London it's going to be fully operational on a daily basis.
Either way, the major concern is how the UK is building a dangerous surveillance state. I mean, I live in London and I can't go around without being watched. And that's just on the streets.
> Who is getting these contracts? Where is that money going?
Stop right there, surveillance should be unidirectional.
More seriously, I wonder if at some time in the future, folks will be able to detect if they are under surveillance? Maybe walk in front of a camera, and see if more ip traffic occurs?
>The Metropolitan Police Service announced on ... that it will begin the operational use of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology.
>The technology, from NEC, provides police officers with an additional tool to assist them in doing what officers have always done – to try to locate and arrest wanted people
Or are you asking why they don't just hire more police? Because presumably the answer is that you get better savings by augmenting the existing force to be X times more effective than it currently is.
Big Brother Watch, the UK campaign group fighting facial recognition has opened a petition to stop the deployment of live facial recognition by the Met Police:
Readit News
Live facial recognition deployments cost a lot of money. Just in Cardiff alone the police spent 3 million pounds in this technology. And they have more than 25 police officers and with brand new iPads surveilling people in real time. (I was there.)
Imagine how much money they're going to spend in London now. So besides the obvious human rights related questions, the other not so obvious one is: Who is getting these contracts? Where is that money going?
From the official PR, it is NEC Corporation.
https://www.nec.com/en/case/mps/index.html
Metropolitan Police Press Release. http://news.met.police.uk/news/met-begins-operational-use-of...
This is and also isn't a lot of money. It's a small amount for an infrastructure project, but it's still 10 pounds per citizen.
You might manage to build a two lane car bridge for that same amount of money. Or a mile of road.
Either way, the major concern is how the UK is building a dangerous surveillance state. I mean, I live in London and I can't go around without being watched. And that's just on the streets.
Stop right there, surveillance should be unidirectional.
More seriously, I wonder if at some time in the future, folks will be able to detect if they are under surveillance? Maybe walk in front of a camera, and see if more ip traffic occurs?
>The Metropolitan Police Service announced on ... that it will begin the operational use of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology.
>The technology, from NEC, provides police officers with an additional tool to assist them in doing what officers have always done – to try to locate and arrest wanted people
Or are you asking why they don't just hire more police? Because presumably the answer is that you get better savings by augmenting the existing force to be X times more effective than it currently is.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-met-police-u...
If anyone finds a more neutral and substantive article on this, we can change it again.
connect the dots