Face recognition cameras help prevent crime everywhere, protect the public and do not breach the privacy of innocent people whose images are captured, a police force has argued.
An office worker from UK, claims South Wales police violated his privacy and protection rights by applying face recognition techniques on him.
But Jeremy Johnson QC compared automated facial recognition to the use of DNA to solve crimes and said it would have had little impact on Bridges.
The police in UK reported “AFR is a further technology that potentially has great utility for the prevention of crime, the apprehension of offenders and the protection of the public.”
The technology maps faces in a crowd and then compares them with a watch list of images, which can include suspects, missing people and persons of interest to the police. The cameras scan faces in large crowds in public places such as streets, shopping malls, crowded stadiums and music events Johnson said the process also included human interaction. Usually it is up to the operator to decide whether the person is a match or not. You then have the intervention.
“It’s not that the operator makes their own assessment, the officer on the ground looking at people will make their own assessment and will decide whether or not to intervene and speak to the individual. Under common law police had the power to use visual imagery for the “prevention and detection of crime”.
It has been argued that police must adhere to data protection rules and have a code of practice for information management.