Article 2 – Metropolitan Police Facial Recognition Technology
The headline speaks for it’s self and 81% of the suspects flagged by Met’s Facial recognition are innocent raises a lot of questions and doubt in the said technology. Concerns maybe raised such as the reliability and the ethical implications caused when law enforcement uses such technology.
Apart from its inaccuracies, a technical, operational and legal issues stated that this is operational in a way unlawfully if it is taken it into court. This may raise a lot of concerns in the public privacy especially if this can lead to surveillances without consent.
In my opinion such technology should undergo through a lot of tests and certifications including legislations. I do not agree when Met prefers to measure accuracy by comparing successful and unsuccessful matches with the total number of faces processed by the facial recognition system as this dropped down the error to 0.1% where in reality it is not. That is a way how to turn around the numbers in your favour. The reality remains that 81% of those flagged were innocent.
Another issue that is facing the Facial recognition system is that this is not falling under any law such as DNA, therefore this must also be addressed to protect any individual being under surveillance and not infringing on personal freedoms and public rights.
Finally, the public should have a say on how these technologies are implemented and monitored. We can all agree that this is all being done for the public safety however it’s unlawful to take advantage of such technologies and use them for other purposes or intentions rather than what initially has been invented for. We have seen it already in other technologies such as the mobile phones so this cannot be implemented especially on facial recognition where who knows what the full capacity is of its capabilities.