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Revised summary of a news article. Article 2 – Metropolitan Police Force use of Facial Recognition Technology.
A research conducted by professors on the use of facial recognition technology for crowd monitoring by the Metropolitan police force has exposed issues such as invasion of privacy, lack of accuracy and failure to obtain a real consent from the public. Additionally, there are also concerns about the validity of the people on the watch list and suspicions of creep surveillance by the police. Despite being challenged in court by human rights groups to refrain from using this technology, the police still intend to use this technology in an upcoming public event with an estimated attendance of 200,000 people.
Article 2 – Metropolitan Police Facial Recognition Technology
The use of facial recognition technology used by the Metropolitan police force has attained the interest of independent researchers to shed some light on the use of this technology for crowd monitoring purposes.
The independent research conducted by professors from the University of Essex exposed several concerns about using this technology such as the lack of accuracy, the lack of explicit legal basis and a breach in fundamental human rights. The evaluation of the technology’s accuracy was done at 6 of the 10 trials conducted by the police, where only 8 matches were verified out of 42 hence, resulted in an 81% error rate, contradicting the error rate of the police which according to their metric the error rate is at 0.1%.
Reporters highlighted significant concerns about the use of this technology citing a range of technical, operational and legal issues such as gaining a meaningful consent from passers-by, however, the efforts by the police force to notify passers-by about the trials were noted. Another major concern is that avoidance of the facial recognition camera was treated as suspicious behaviour and that certainly raises issues regarding the extension of police powers and suspicions of creep surveillance.
Another concern raised by the research was the lack of validation of people on the watch list and to mitigate this concern a huge upgrade in the police IT system is needed to ensure that the people on the watch lists are there legally. Despite being challenged in court by an anti-surveillance campaign group and another judicial challenge by a human rights group to stop using this technology, the police force has the support of the government who believes that there is a legal framework for the use of live facial recognition technology and the use of facial recognition still intended to be used at the Wales National Airshow with an estimated attendance of 200,000 people.
In my opinion the use of facial recognition technology shall be used for the sole purpose of monitoring crowds or public spaces for suspicious behaviour however, I do not agree with using this technology to search and identify people in public spaces or crowds primarily due to the lack of accuracy and the validation of the watch list. There is no wrong doing by using such systems as an additional aid to ensure that public order is maintained and the laws respected but I do not agree with using the system to identify people.Slow Progress is Better Than No Progress
Located in Malta’s central, Attard forms part of the ‘three villages’ along with Lija and Balzan. Attard has a population of around 11,000 people and is mostly famous for the San Anton Palace as the main residence of the president of Malta which is surrounded with a massive garden which contains trees, monuments, fountains, pathways and even animals amongst others things.
Attard’s motto is “florigera rosis halo” which translates to “I perfume the air with my blossoms”. Although this motto is true for the San Anton Palace area, it does not remain that much valid for the rest of the of village particularly the road leading to the farmer’s market in Ta’ Qali, which becomes a mayhem of cars on the days when the market is open.
The idea is to create a shuttle service with frequent intervals to and from the Attard’s village square to the market and completely restrict the access for cars in the farmer’s market area and the adjacent roads. The village square is at walking distance from all the village hence, residents do not need a car to travel thus reducing the air pollution caused by cars on the farmer’s market days.
Some benefits of this service would be that residents would not need a car to go to the farmer’s market hence, reducing air pollution while still supporting local farmers and Maltese food producers. This service may also increase social interaction amongst Attard residents and may have a positive impact on the whole community in general.