33 ms·

Live facial recognition cameras may become 'commonplace' as police use soars

166 points by c-oreills 1y ago

Oarch 1y ago
Will they ban all types of face coverings? I couldn't imagine this happening in the UK, it's too culturally sensitive. In which case, what good does it do?
- n8cpdx 1y ago
  Plenty of criminals don’t bother covering their faces. Even when they plan their crime in advance and know there are cameras.
- FredPret 1y ago
  What about gait recognition
  - ris 1y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_of_Silly_Walks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_of_Silly_Walks
    - dghlsakjg 1y ago
      https://xkcd.com/1105/ https://xkcd.com/1105/
  - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
    Who are you, Shai-Hulud?
- tough 1y ago
  [flagged]
- titzer 1y ago
  Yes, except "law" enforcement. In scare quotes because there will be no law.
Teever 1y ago
This is unavoidable and the only way to mitigate the negatives is sousveillance.[0] I reject claims by law enforcement that this will lead to making their lives less safe and that they will need to take steps to mitigate it including wearing masks and not giving out their names.[1] In small towns of old every knew the police and judge, where they lived and which schools their children attended because their kids may have even sat next to them in class. This was fine and served as a moderating force for the worst impulses of law enforcement. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance [1] https://calgaryherald.com/news/calgary-police-service-doxing-officer-name-regimental-number https://calgaryherald.com/news/calgary-police-service-doxing...
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  This was true of pretty much everyone in small towns of old, or even in city neighborhoods of old. Everyone knew each other, or at least knew a stranger when they saw one. People saw who was talking to whom, and gossiped about it.
- swayvil 1y ago
  Who gets to be anonymous and who doesn't? Cops or regular people? Mods or users? And there's the separation between public and private conversation too. Where do we draw that line? I had a post removed the other day. The moderator's identity (or psuedoidentity) remained hidden. Mine didn't of course. The conversation over his motive and actions remained hidden from public view too. And that seems bad to me. So ya, that line.
  - perching_aix 1y ago
    The sousveillance GP suggests seems to address exactly that kind of asymmetry, if even just partially. Or do I misunderstand what you're getting at?
- worldsayshi 1y ago
  People will be more likely to carry surveillance capitalism devices than devices that store data for some idea of public good. This world being us closer to the solution: build ecosystems where data is stored in s way that is owned by the community rather than a company.
kwertyoowiyop 1y ago
This will make murder mystery shows harder to write. Even now they usually put in some line about how they don’t have traffic camera coverage in the critical area, and they ignore getting location data from suspects’ phones.
- tough 1y ago
  AI generated deepfakes solve this you can't trust the cameras footage now
- cortesoft 1y ago
  I have always thought that futuristic police state movies and shows underestimate how oppressive a fully capable, automated surveillance apparatus could be. Movies like Minority Report try to show the surveillance state as being a struggle to overcome, but it is still always too easy. Computers don’t get distracted, scale perfectly, and can run 24-7. You can’t just sneak away with your head down, because the machines would have tracked you into a place, would know exactly who is in every building, and would be able to associate the person exiting a building with the person who went in. They wont forget.
  - matthewdgreen 1y ago
    Look at how quickly the cops tracked Luigi Mangione. It’s not clear how much face recognition (as opposed to manual search) contributed to that, but even for a person who wore a mask, all it took was a slip up where he took the mask off in one place. I am not saying this is a bad thing in the case of a pre-planned murder. But it does make it obvious how hard it might be to evade notice in the future, assuming you are doing it for more legitimate privacy reasons.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    If you go into a building and change clothes, they will not remember. Of course, we're assuming that the place you went into does not have cameras accessible to the system. At some point, building codes/permits will start requiring cameras specifically to feed into this system.
masfuerte 1y ago
A similar thing happened with automatic number place recognition. With no public debate the police built a nationwide network of ANPR cameras. The Information Commissioner opined that it was probably illegal. But rather than recommending prosecutions, he recommended that the law be changed to legitimise the police law breaking.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
  How are you harmed by it?
  - matthewdgreen 1y ago
    The neat thing about these databases is that you’ll never know. Can a lender buy access to them? How about your abusive ex, who knows and/or is a cop? The stalker who somehow knew just where that woman would be when he killed her, was that just bad luck or did he slip someone a few hundred bucks or buy the data from a data broker? There’s a version of an answer to this where access to search these systems is so tightly logged that we never need to wonder about the answer to these questions. I doubt most of the systems being deployed worldwide are anywhere near that standard.
    - allthenopes25 1y ago
      > Can a lender buy access to them? In the UK (as in the case we're discussing)? No. > How about your abusive ex, who knows and/or is a cop? Like all other PNC access, this gets logged. Police genuinely do get disciplined and fired for abusing the PNC. Random officers cannot randomly look up plates on ANPR: only traffic police or more senior officers can and it, like every other access, gets logged. The Data Protection Act allows us to find out who has been disciplined, demoted or fired, and the Met for example answer those. > The stalker who somehow knew just where that woman would be when he killed her, was that just bad luck or did he slip someone a few hundred bucks or buy the data from a data broker? Data brokers do not get PNC data in the UK. And you're imagining an unnecessarily fantastical, conspiratorial explanation of a stalker who "somehow knew where" some woman would be, when stalkers clearly manage this adequately by, like, ordinary stalking skills (and are rarely unknown to their victims in the first place; they usually have knowledge that was volunteered or was acquired firsthand). Women don't need this imaginary scenario to feel fear: old-fashioned hiding in a car and waiting will do it. More high-tech: hiding an AirTag will do it. Following on Facebook will do it. Also imagining third party violence that happens due to police data access is irrelevant: police officers themselves commit violence. Probably start there. > There’s a version of an answer to this where access to search these systems is so tightly logged that we never need to wonder about the answer to these questions. I doubt most of the systems being deployed worldwide are anywhere near that standard. They are in the UK. Are face recognition cameras a bad thing in the hands of the UK police? Probably sometimes yes. But these conspiratorial hypotheses don't need airing. FWIW, I still think the US perception of the UK "surveillance state" is largely misplaced and is based on poor journalism about simple numbers of cameras that has never been adequately put into context. These facial recognition cameras cannot be instantly used on some big national police surveillance mechanism because in essence no such system exists: the vast majority of CCTV cameras in the UK are not operated by police at all. Most cameras are operated by local and regional councils (access for which the police would need to issue warrants or make detailed subject/time requests) or private businesses (ditto). And most of the huge number of cameras the police imagine aren't connected to anything more complex than Ring. Even with Ring footage, British police find that if they want to use doorbell camera footage, it is faster to arrange a time to visit the owner or at best knock on the door of the householder and ask for it to be emailed or copied to an SD card. They do not have broad instant access, much less broad, instant, warrantless access. The biggest risk is not outright abuse but malfeasance/misfeasance overuse, much more dull-witted, instant and humdrum: for example some of the operators perceive the desire not to walk past one of them to be evidence of criminal intent, and they use that as a justification for a stop and search.
galacticaactual 1y ago
What say all of you who worked on the AI that powers this?
- kunzhi 1y ago
  "When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success." - Robert J. Oppenheimer
- nxm 1y ago
  If they didn't, others would have.
- Nasrudith 1y ago
  Do you blame the blacksmith for making of a knife? I haven't worked on facial recognition or AI but I have made peace with the fact that some things are so dual-usage that you have to accept that it will be used for both good and evil. Just look at cryptography for one. There is no such thing as 'encryption which works only for the good guys'. Just like there is no thing as a 'working gun which does not harm the innocent'. The 'do nothing and don't advance' option is just an illusion. Because in actuality what happens is "Only the worst people get the option.". Life isn't very kind to those attempting moral purity unfortunately. There is a reason 'worldly' and 'morally pragmatic' are synonymous. If you want to reduce harm, if possible countermeasures are probably the best you can do. It varies by specific technology. Depending upon the tech this may ironically involve working with the very thing you are trying to weaken. Or it may be something completely different, say working in materials science instead of ballistics.
  - galacticaactual 1y ago
    Whatever lets you sleep at night.
beloch 1y ago
We may need laws that treat these cameras as something like a wiretap. They can be there streaming their data to data stores, but accessing that data would require warrants that are limited in scope. The data could be used for answering specific, legally justifiable questions, not for everyday surveillance and profiling. e.g. It would be valid to use these cameras to answer who was at a crime scene, when, and where did they go that day. It would not be valid to reconstruct a web of everyday associations stretching back months for someone just because an officer didn't like the way they look.
- matthewdgreen 1y ago
  I think we need to understand and accept that this stuff is inevitable as the technology gets cheaper. If the cops don’t do it themselves, private industry will do it for them and sell it or hand the data over as a “public service.” The only way out of this is to make an affirmative series of laws that make the construction of anything resembling a tracking database illegal and heavily-fined, but we’re not there. Even privacy-friendly Europe isn’t close to putting those restrictions on its police.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    No private industry will do anything without it being profitable. Handing it over as a public service would mean they are making money with that data in other ways. What would be those other ways? I can't think of anything that's not dystopian hell, so maybe to make that not legal???
    - matthewdgreen 1y ago
      The answer is that these databases are hugely valuable for targeted advertising and marketing, and if they’re relatively cheap to build then that makes everything even easier. Law enforcement gets access because in most countries the law allows them to make data requests to existing companies, and “we aren’t going to help the cops solve a murder” is bad PR when you’ve already collected the relevant data.
vladms 1y ago
Let's not ignore though that there are some people with some control. These systems do not appear because of a small conspiracy but because a lot of people think they are OK and don't bother to understand the issues and organize to fight them. I know an ex-policemen that is a good man but hated working in the police because the "public" was aggressive and were challenging them constantly (would not name the country or specific stories). From their point of view "automatization" would make police job safer and easier, and convincing them of the contrary has few chances. The more "not-connected" is the society (with people not having a friend that is "a policeman", "a firefighter", "a teacher", etc), the more problems we will have no matter the technology...
- freeone3000 1y ago
  Why would I want to be friends with someone who murders with impunity? Who considers “the public” someone to control? Who considers themselves above question?
  - blooalien 1y ago
    > Why would I want to be friends with someone who murders with impunity? Who considers “the public” someone to control? Who considers themselves above question? Because they're not all that way, and some of them still do genuinely try to "Protect and Serve"? And then you have the others mentioned "fire fighters", "teachers", etc, again many of whom are just tryin' to do some good in the world. Hunt all those good ones down and hold them up as examples of how the rest should be trying to do their jobs. Just complaining about the bad ones and acting like they're the only ones certainly doesn't make the situation any better for them or us.
    - freeone3000 1y ago
      Maybe they’re not all like that, but the person I responded to said one particular ex-cop was a “good man” who simply needed to ensure the public didn’t question him. This is not a good man.
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
The Unites States just approved what, 20 billion, to build infrastructure for a new national police people identification unit? Just like the patriot act after 9/11, the giant new 'ICE' budget is going to transform America, and not in a good way. And that 20 billion additional for internal policing is never going away, just look at the TSA. And mission creep will set in, just look at FISA courts and 'parallel reconstruction' now being the norm and no one cares. I tell my kids this isn't normal, this isn't what the US used to be like, but they don't know any different, so to them giving up just a little bit of this (like we did with the Patriot Act) isn't a big deal.
- blooalien 1y ago
  > I tell my kids this isn't normal, this isn't what the US used to be like, but they don't know any different, so to them giving up just a little bit of this (like we did with the Patriot Act) isn't a big deal. That's why books like "1984" used to be required reading in grade-school Literature class (fully supported policy by the History and Civics class teachers), and the "messier" bits of our nation's history were taught openly as "mistakes to be learned from so that we never repeat them" way back when I was a kid and dinosaurs still roamed the Earth... The idea was (as one teacher explained to me) that we would learn the dangers to watch out for, and as good little patriots, we'd always be ready to defend the freedoms of our great nation whether threatened from without or within.
amelius 1y ago
What is this slippery stuff on this slope?
Buttons840 1y ago
Technology seems destined to bring everything to light. My only wish is that those in positions of power are the first to be dragged into the light.
- ivape 1y ago
  So, are you thinking what I'm thinking? Bodycams on congressmen/women and senators? If you're on the job, the bodycam stays on.
- 0_____0 1y ago
  Public facial recognition and ALPRS database. It would be chaos.
- latentsea 1y ago
  Power is protected.
smcin 1y ago
The US's first "Cop City", the $117m Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, officially opened April 29, 2025, despite years of opposition and a suppressed effort to get a referendum against it on the ballot. [0] Did not get any discussion here on HN at all. [1] characterizes it as "a massive, militarized police training compound in the Weelaunee Forest in the southeast outskirts of Atlanta" and lists its security partners as Flock Safety (automated license plate reader (ALPR) vendor, #58 fastest-growing company) and Motorola Solutions. [1] lists its Corporate and Nonprofit Foundation Donors and Sponsors: finance, real-estate companies, Acuity Brands, AT&T, Cushman & Wakefield, KPMG, McKesson, Invesco, Rollins, Synovus and others, Arthur Blank Foundation, The Bierenbaum Family Foundation, Connolly Family Foundation, The Goizueta Foundation, of Atlanta, Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, of Atlanta, O. Wayne Rollins Foundation, of Atlanta, J. Bulow Campbell Foundation and others. (FYI the parent Guardian article is about England and Wales, not the US. There is a similar level of surveillance cameras but comparing use of force to the US, police in England and Wales only fatally shot 2 people in 2023/24 [2], 24 deaths in or following police custody and a further 60 fatalities defined as other deaths during or following police contact. for which [2b] is a report with demographics.) [0]: "Atlanta’s controversial ‘Cop City’ training center opens after years of fighting" https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/atlanta-cop-city-open-protest-b2741838.html https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/at... [1]: "The Companies and Foundations behind Cop City" https://afsc.org/companies-and-foundations-behind-cop-city https://afsc.org/companies-and-foundations-behind-cop-city [2]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/319287/deaths-during-or-following-police-contact-causes-england-and-wales/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/319287/deaths-during-or-... [2b]: https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/our-work/research-and-statistics/annual-deaths-statistics https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/our-work/research-and-stati...
octo888 1y ago
This will achieve 3 things: 1. No reduction in crime 2. A huge chilling effect on the innocent population, further subduing people and paving the way for more authoritarianism. 3. Large amounts of profit for a private company
- smegma2 1y ago
  How would it chill things that aren’t crimes without deterring actual crimes? This seems like a convenient set of assertions if you’re a priori against surveillance. You’re also missing the aspect of catching crime rather than deterring it.
  - dghlsakjg 1y ago
    The NYPD have used surveillance footage to go after people at protests before, and even people who proveably were just in the vicinity of a protest, but otherwise not participating. Frequently they issue basically bullshit tickets after the fact, things like blocking the sidewalk or breaking curfew after detaining protesters. Do you really think there aren’t police forces that will use this in the furtherance of political goals? https://apnews.com/article/nypd-george-floyd-protests-settlement-kettling-2b8c40a36e2195b9a4b33fa2efaccf0a https://apnews.com/article/nypd-george-floyd-protests-settle... https://www.nyclu.org/press-release/face-lawsuit-nypd-ends-routine-videotaping-protestors https://www.nyclu.org/press-release/face-lawsuit-nypd-ends-r...
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 1y ago
  Perhaps not coincidentally, that's the same thing that generally happens with gun control laws. They're all built on a flawed principle - that criminals don't have and will not use workarounds. In reality, only law-abiding people have no workarounds.
  - latentsea 1y ago
    Well... as someone living in a country with strict gun control laws who marvels at the dumb shit that goes on in America, I can say for certain that at least here the average run of the mill crazies don't have access to firearms and thank bloody goodness.
lenerdenator 1y ago
Tyranny can always come. All you can do is be ready for it to come to you.
caditinpiscinam 1y ago
Cities are banning face coverings too. https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-ski-mask-ban-balaclava-20231214.html https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-ski-mask-ban-bala... At this rate they should just make everyone wear a big QR code containing our names and social security numbers on our shirts. A sort of license plate for people. Would save on processing power at least.
- collingreen 1y ago
  Maybe with different colors and shapes to indicate your religion or race or history so the police and others can easily sort out the good from the bad.
deleted 1y ago
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tippytippytango 1y ago
False positives for this tech is absurdly high and law enforcement treats it like it’s perfect. That’s enough of a reason to make it illegal.
ineedaj0b 1y ago
too bad im not a female who wears a burka. closest thing we have workable day to day are gaiters (balaclavas imo don't work outside cold winter months, gaiters you can where in hot weather too - get it wet, it'll shed heat) still doesn't help with the eyes. or your gait. and face masks have people rolling their eyes at you and likely will for the next 5-10 years, despite sorta working if you're sick.
hd4 1y ago
https://archive.is/2wkD0 https://archive.is/2wkD0
darepublic 1y ago
I feel like law enforcement increasingly relies on automated surveillance , ie traffic cameras. But for brazen crime (ie duplicated plates) the fines and enforcement is spotty and weak. So the net result is very strict punishing justice for the regular public and a shrug of the shoulders toward determined criminals
- Loughla 1y ago
  Yes, this is policing. It's easier to hassle normal people who won't be a problem. In my area, the police are all over teenagers for loitering in parking lots on the weekends, but do nothing about the very obvious drug dealers in the local trailer park.
- ls612 1y ago
  This is intentional. "For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law".
- threecheese 1y ago
  Enforcement in my area has recently deployed camera sinto work zones, and dispatch automated tickets to any drivers exceeding the work zone-reduced speed limit. The cameras are there every day, regardless of whether or not anyone is working, pushing out tickets. I paid $90 + fees for speeding past it, opposite the median, on a weekend, and paying is easier than arguing. I can’t imagine how lucrative this is. It’s like the opposite of a cops salary.
ceinewydd 1y ago
This isn't really surprising from the UK. If you go back 15-20 years, taxing a vehicle to drive on public roads used to involve displaying a "Tax Disc" in your windscreen, on the off-side of the vehicle. They abolished this system in 2014 [1] because they'd long since reached saturation of permanent Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) readers [2] from >11000 cameras on UK roads, and scanning over 50 million vehicles per day. It's also common to have 'Average Speed' systems on major roads and even country roads where the accident rate exceeds a threshold defined by the local councils. Those will issue you a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) and points on your licence for a moving violation if you exceed the speed limit. Beyond the 'Average Speed' infrastructure is a giant number of fixed cameras which measure speed and capture imagery of your vehicle, number plate, and the driver and automatically issue the PCN for speeding, and mobile vans operated by the authorities and deployed anywhere they consider a "hotspot". All of this costs you money immediately to pay the PCN, costs you money over time because insurers hike their rates, and after 2-4 violations in 36 months, can result in you losing your ability to drive and trigger an extended "retake driving test" (after your disqualification period). This is much more draconian than the United States where in many states a moving violation (like a speeding infraction) will only be processed by a policeman pulling you over for a chat. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vehicle-tax-changes https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vehicle-tax-changes [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number-plate_recognition_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number-plate_recogni...
- nmstoker 1y ago
  With that battery of cameras and seemingly inevitable negative outcomes for speeders, it's unusual how many people continue to speed blatantly.
- janalsncm 1y ago
  > Those will issue you a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) and points on your licence for a moving violation if you exceed the speed limit That seems good? Either we think speed limit laws should be enforced or we don’t. In the bay area where the speed limit seems to be infinity the effective speed limit is around 80mph even if the posted limit is 65.
- deleted 1y ago
electrondood 1y ago
While men claiming to be ICE get to wear plainclothes and gaiters/face masks as they snatch people off the street without presenting identification or a warrant.
jdkee 1y ago
Despite the Supreme Court ruling in Carpenter v. U.S., courts have generally given persons less rights to privacy when in public. States such as Illinois have an informed consent model of biometric data gathering.
budududuroiu 1y ago
I find it funny that the people that are outraged by ULEZ cameras as “control of the state” are always silent on issues such as facial recognition or Chat Control. Idk, maybe people should start vandalising these cameras
black_13 1y ago
[dead]
archagon 1y ago
N95 masks regain popularity. RFK Jr. bans all masking in public.

166 points by c-oreills 1y ago

Will they ban all types of face coverings? I couldn't imagine this happening in the UK, it's too culturally sensitive. In which case, what good does it do?

n8cpdx 1y ago
Plenty of criminals don’t bother covering their faces. Even when they plan their crime in advance and know there are cameras.
FredPret 1y ago
What about gait recognition
- ris 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_of_Silly_Walks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_of_Silly_Walks
  - dghlsakjg 1y ago
    https://xkcd.com/1105/ https://xkcd.com/1105/
- ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
  Who are you, Shai-Hulud?
tough 1y ago
[flagged]
titzer 1y ago
Yes, except "law" enforcement. In scare quotes because there will be no law.

Teever 1y ago

This is unavoidable and the only way to mitigate the negatives is sousveillance.[0] I reject claims by law enforcement that this will lead to making their lives less safe and that they will need to take steps to mitigate it including wearing masks and not giving out their names.[1] In small towns of old every knew the police and judge, where they lived and which schools their children attended because their kids may have even sat next to them in class. This was fine and served as a moderating force for the worst impulses of law enforcement. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance [1] https://calgaryherald.com/news/calgary-police-service-doxing-officer-name-regimental-number https://calgaryherald.com/news/calgary-police-service-doxing...

SoftTalker 1y ago
This was true of pretty much everyone in small towns of old, or even in city neighborhoods of old. Everyone knew each other, or at least knew a stranger when they saw one. People saw who was talking to whom, and gossiped about it.
swayvil 1y ago
Who gets to be anonymous and who doesn't? Cops or regular people? Mods or users? And there's the separation between public and private conversation too. Where do we draw that line? I had a post removed the other day. The moderator's identity (or psuedoidentity) remained hidden. Mine didn't of course. The conversation over his motive and actions remained hidden from public view too. And that seems bad to me. So ya, that line.
- perching_aix 1y ago
  The sousveillance GP suggests seems to address exactly that kind of asymmetry, if even just partially. Or do I misunderstand what you're getting at?
worldsayshi 1y ago
People will be more likely to carry surveillance capitalism devices than devices that store data for some idea of public good. This world being us closer to the solution: build ecosystems where data is stored in s way that is owned by the community rather than a company.

kwertyoowiyop 1y ago

This will make murder mystery shows harder to write. Even now they usually put in some line about how they don’t have traffic camera coverage in the critical area, and they ignore getting location data from suspects’ phones.

tough 1y ago
AI generated deepfakes solve this you can't trust the cameras footage now
cortesoft 1y ago
I have always thought that futuristic police state movies and shows underestimate how oppressive a fully capable, automated surveillance apparatus could be. Movies like Minority Report try to show the surveillance state as being a struggle to overcome, but it is still always too easy. Computers don’t get distracted, scale perfectly, and can run 24-7. You can’t just sneak away with your head down, because the machines would have tracked you into a place, would know exactly who is in every building, and would be able to associate the person exiting a building with the person who went in. They wont forget.
- matthewdgreen 1y ago
  Look at how quickly the cops tracked Luigi Mangione. It’s not clear how much face recognition (as opposed to manual search) contributed to that, but even for a person who wore a mask, all it took was a slip up where he took the mask off in one place. I am not saying this is a bad thing in the case of a pre-planned murder. But it does make it obvious how hard it might be to evade notice in the future, assuming you are doing it for more legitimate privacy reasons.
- dylan604 1y ago
  If you go into a building and change clothes, they will not remember. Of course, we're assuming that the place you went into does not have cameras accessible to the system. At some point, building codes/permits will start requiring cameras specifically to feed into this system.

masfuerte 1y ago

A similar thing happened with automatic number place recognition. With no public debate the police built a nationwide network of ANPR cameras. The Information Commissioner opined that it was probably illegal. But rather than recommending prosecutions, he recommended that the law be changed to legitimise the police law breaking.

2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
How are you harmed by it?
- matthewdgreen 1y ago
  The neat thing about these databases is that you’ll never know. Can a lender buy access to them? How about your abusive ex, who knows and/or is a cop? The stalker who somehow knew just where that woman would be when he killed her, was that just bad luck or did he slip someone a few hundred bucks or buy the data from a data broker? There’s a version of an answer to this where access to search these systems is so tightly logged that we never need to wonder about the answer to these questions. I doubt most of the systems being deployed worldwide are anywhere near that standard.
  - allthenopes25 1y ago
    > Can a lender buy access to them? In the UK (as in the case we're discussing)? No. > How about your abusive ex, who knows and/or is a cop? Like all other PNC access, this gets logged. Police genuinely do get disciplined and fired for abusing the PNC. Random officers cannot randomly look up plates on ANPR: only traffic police or more senior officers can and it, like every other access, gets logged. The Data Protection Act allows us to find out who has been disciplined, demoted or fired, and the Met for example answer those. > The stalker who somehow knew just where that woman would be when he killed her, was that just bad luck or did he slip someone a few hundred bucks or buy the data from a data broker? Data brokers do not get PNC data in the UK. And you're imagining an unnecessarily fantastical, conspiratorial explanation of a stalker who "somehow knew where" some woman would be, when stalkers clearly manage this adequately by, like, ordinary stalking skills (and are rarely unknown to their victims in the first place; they usually have knowledge that was volunteered or was acquired firsthand). Women don't need this imaginary scenario to feel fear: old-fashioned hiding in a car and waiting will do it. More high-tech: hiding an AirTag will do it. Following on Facebook will do it. Also imagining third party violence that happens due to police data access is irrelevant: police officers themselves commit violence. Probably start there. > There’s a version of an answer to this where access to search these systems is so tightly logged that we never need to wonder about the answer to these questions. I doubt most of the systems being deployed worldwide are anywhere near that standard. They are in the UK. Are face recognition cameras a bad thing in the hands of the UK police? Probably sometimes yes. But these conspiratorial hypotheses don't need airing. FWIW, I still think the US perception of the UK "surveillance state" is largely misplaced and is based on poor journalism about simple numbers of cameras that has never been adequately put into context. These facial recognition cameras cannot be instantly used on some big national police surveillance mechanism because in essence no such system exists: the vast majority of CCTV cameras in the UK are not operated by police at all. Most cameras are operated by local and regional councils (access for which the police would need to issue warrants or make detailed subject/time requests) or private businesses (ditto). And most of the huge number of cameras the police imagine aren't connected to anything more complex than Ring. Even with Ring footage, British police find that if they want to use doorbell camera footage, it is faster to arrange a time to visit the owner or at best knock on the door of the householder and ask for it to be emailed or copied to an SD card. They do not have broad instant access, much less broad, instant, warrantless access. The biggest risk is not outright abuse but malfeasance/misfeasance overuse, much more dull-witted, instant and humdrum: for example some of the operators perceive the desire not to walk past one of them to be evidence of criminal intent, and they use that as a justification for a stop and search.

galacticaactual 1y ago

What say all of you who worked on the AI that powers this?

kunzhi 1y ago
"When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success." - Robert J. Oppenheimer
nxm 1y ago
If they didn't, others would have.
Nasrudith 1y ago
Do you blame the blacksmith for making of a knife? I haven't worked on facial recognition or AI but I have made peace with the fact that some things are so dual-usage that you have to accept that it will be used for both good and evil. Just look at cryptography for one. There is no such thing as 'encryption which works only for the good guys'. Just like there is no thing as a 'working gun which does not harm the innocent'. The 'do nothing and don't advance' option is just an illusion. Because in actuality what happens is "Only the worst people get the option.". Life isn't very kind to those attempting moral purity unfortunately. There is a reason 'worldly' and 'morally pragmatic' are synonymous. If you want to reduce harm, if possible countermeasures are probably the best you can do. It varies by specific technology. Depending upon the tech this may ironically involve working with the very thing you are trying to weaken. Or it may be something completely different, say working in materials science instead of ballistics.
- galacticaactual 1y ago
  Whatever lets you sleep at night.

beloch 1y ago

We may need laws that treat these cameras as something like a wiretap. They can be there streaming their data to data stores, but accessing that data would require warrants that are limited in scope. The data could be used for answering specific, legally justifiable questions, not for everyday surveillance and profiling. e.g. It would be valid to use these cameras to answer who was at a crime scene, when, and where did they go that day. It would not be valid to reconstruct a web of everyday associations stretching back months for someone just because an officer didn't like the way they look.

matthewdgreen 1y ago
I think we need to understand and accept that this stuff is inevitable as the technology gets cheaper. If the cops don’t do it themselves, private industry will do it for them and sell it or hand the data over as a “public service.” The only way out of this is to make an affirmative series of laws that make the construction of anything resembling a tracking database illegal and heavily-fined, but we’re not there. Even privacy-friendly Europe isn’t close to putting those restrictions on its police.
- dylan604 1y ago
  No private industry will do anything without it being profitable. Handing it over as a public service would mean they are making money with that data in other ways. What would be those other ways? I can't think of anything that's not dystopian hell, so maybe to make that not legal???
  - matthewdgreen 1y ago
    The answer is that these databases are hugely valuable for targeted advertising and marketing, and if they’re relatively cheap to build then that makes everything even easier. Law enforcement gets access because in most countries the law allows them to make data requests to existing companies, and “we aren’t going to help the cops solve a murder” is bad PR when you’ve already collected the relevant data.

vladms 1y ago

Let's not ignore though that there are some people with some control. These systems do not appear because of a small conspiracy but because a lot of people think they are OK and don't bother to understand the issues and organize to fight them. I know an ex-policemen that is a good man but hated working in the police because the "public" was aggressive and were challenging them constantly (would not name the country or specific stories). From their point of view "automatization" would make police job safer and easier, and convincing them of the contrary has few chances. The more "not-connected" is the society (with people not having a friend that is "a policeman", "a firefighter", "a teacher", etc), the more problems we will have no matter the technology...

freeone3000 1y ago
Why would I want to be friends with someone who murders with impunity? Who considers “the public” someone to control? Who considers themselves above question?
- blooalien 1y ago
  > Why would I want to be friends with someone who murders with impunity? Who considers “the public” someone to control? Who considers themselves above question? Because they're not all that way, and some of them still do genuinely try to "Protect and Serve"? And then you have the others mentioned "fire fighters", "teachers", etc, again many of whom are just tryin' to do some good in the world. Hunt all those good ones down and hold them up as examples of how the rest should be trying to do their jobs. Just complaining about the bad ones and acting like they're the only ones certainly doesn't make the situation any better for them or us.
  - freeone3000 1y ago
    Maybe they’re not all like that, but the person I responded to said one particular ex-cop was a “good man” who simply needed to ensure the public didn’t question him. This is not a good man.

_DeadFred_ 1y ago

The Unites States just approved what, 20 billion, to build infrastructure for a new national police people identification unit? Just like the patriot act after 9/11, the giant new 'ICE' budget is going to transform America, and not in a good way. And that 20 billion additional for internal policing is never going away, just look at the TSA. And mission creep will set in, just look at FISA courts and 'parallel reconstruction' now being the norm and no one cares. I tell my kids this isn't normal, this isn't what the US used to be like, but they don't know any different, so to them giving up just a little bit of this (like we did with the Patriot Act) isn't a big deal.

blooalien 1y ago
> I tell my kids this isn't normal, this isn't what the US used to be like, but they don't know any different, so to them giving up just a little bit of this (like we did with the Patriot Act) isn't a big deal. That's why books like "1984" used to be required reading in grade-school Literature class (fully supported policy by the History and Civics class teachers), and the "messier" bits of our nation's history were taught openly as "mistakes to be learned from so that we never repeat them" way back when I was a kid and dinosaurs still roamed the Earth... The idea was (as one teacher explained to me) that we would learn the dangers to watch out for, and as good little patriots, we'd always be ready to defend the freedoms of our great nation whether threatened from without or within.

amelius 1y ago

What is this slippery stuff on this slope?

Buttons840 1y ago

Technology seems destined to bring everything to light. My only wish is that those in positions of power are the first to be dragged into the light.

ivape 1y ago
So, are you thinking what I'm thinking? Bodycams on congressmen/women and senators? If you're on the job, the bodycam stays on.
0_____0 1y ago
Public facial recognition and ALPRS database. It would be chaos.
latentsea 1y ago
Power is protected.

smcin 1y ago

The US's first "Cop City", the $117m Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, officially opened April 29, 2025, despite years of opposition and a suppressed effort to get a referendum against it on the ballot. [0] Did not get any discussion here on HN at all. [1] characterizes it as "a massive, militarized police training compound in the Weelaunee Forest in the southeast outskirts of Atlanta" and lists its security partners as Flock Safety (automated license plate reader (ALPR) vendor, #58 fastest-growing company) and Motorola Solutions. [1] lists its Corporate and Nonprofit Foundation Donors and Sponsors: finance, real-estate companies, Acuity Brands, AT&T, Cushman & Wakefield, KPMG, McKesson, Invesco, Rollins, Synovus and others, Arthur Blank Foundation, The Bierenbaum Family Foundation, Connolly Family Foundation, The Goizueta Foundation, of Atlanta, Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, of Atlanta, O. Wayne Rollins Foundation, of Atlanta, J. Bulow Campbell Foundation and others. (FYI the parent Guardian article is about England and Wales, not the US. There is a similar level of surveillance cameras but comparing use of force to the US, police in England and Wales only fatally shot 2 people in 2023/24 [2], 24 deaths in or following police custody and a further 60 fatalities defined as other deaths during or following police contact. for which [2b] is a report with demographics.) [0]: "Atlanta’s controversial ‘Cop City’ training center opens after years of fighting" https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/atlanta-cop-city-open-protest-b2741838.html https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/at... [1]: "The Companies and Foundations behind Cop City" https://afsc.org/companies-and-foundations-behind-cop-city https://afsc.org/companies-and-foundations-behind-cop-city [2]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/319287/deaths-during-or-following-police-contact-causes-england-and-wales/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/319287/deaths-during-or-... [2b]: https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/our-work/research-and-statistics/annual-deaths-statistics https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/our-work/research-and-stati...

octo888 1y ago

This will achieve 3 things: 1. No reduction in crime 2. A huge chilling effect on the innocent population, further subduing people and paving the way for more authoritarianism. 3. Large amounts of profit for a private company

smegma2 1y ago
How would it chill things that aren’t crimes without deterring actual crimes? This seems like a convenient set of assertions if you’re a priori against surveillance. You’re also missing the aspect of catching crime rather than deterring it.
- dghlsakjg 1y ago
  The NYPD have used surveillance footage to go after people at protests before, and even people who proveably were just in the vicinity of a protest, but otherwise not participating. Frequently they issue basically bullshit tickets after the fact, things like blocking the sidewalk or breaking curfew after detaining protesters. Do you really think there aren’t police forces that will use this in the furtherance of political goals? https://apnews.com/article/nypd-george-floyd-protests-settlement-kettling-2b8c40a36e2195b9a4b33fa2efaccf0a https://apnews.com/article/nypd-george-floyd-protests-settle... https://www.nyclu.org/press-release/face-lawsuit-nypd-ends-routine-videotaping-protestors https://www.nyclu.org/press-release/face-lawsuit-nypd-ends-r...
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 1y ago
Perhaps not coincidentally, that's the same thing that generally happens with gun control laws. They're all built on a flawed principle - that criminals don't have and will not use workarounds. In reality, only law-abiding people have no workarounds.
- latentsea 1y ago
  Well... as someone living in a country with strict gun control laws who marvels at the dumb shit that goes on in America, I can say for certain that at least here the average run of the mill crazies don't have access to firearms and thank bloody goodness.

lenerdenator 1y ago

Tyranny can always come. All you can do is be ready for it to come to you.

caditinpiscinam 1y ago

Cities are banning face coverings too. https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-ski-mask-ban-balaclava-20231214.html https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-ski-mask-ban-bala... At this rate they should just make everyone wear a big QR code containing our names and social security numbers on our shirts. A sort of license plate for people. Would save on processing power at least.

collingreen 1y ago
Maybe with different colors and shapes to indicate your religion or race or history so the police and others can easily sort out the good from the bad.

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tippytippytango 1y ago

False positives for this tech is absurdly high and law enforcement treats it like it’s perfect. That’s enough of a reason to make it illegal.

ineedaj0b 1y ago

too bad im not a female who wears a burka. closest thing we have workable day to day are gaiters (balaclavas imo don't work outside cold winter months, gaiters you can where in hot weather too - get it wet, it'll shed heat) still doesn't help with the eyes. or your gait. and face masks have people rolling their eyes at you and likely will for the next 5-10 years, despite sorta working if you're sick.

hd4 1y ago

https://archive.is/2wkD0 https://archive.is/2wkD0

darepublic 1y ago

I feel like law enforcement increasingly relies on automated surveillance , ie traffic cameras. But for brazen crime (ie duplicated plates) the fines and enforcement is spotty and weak. So the net result is very strict punishing justice for the regular public and a shrug of the shoulders toward determined criminals

Loughla 1y ago
Yes, this is policing. It's easier to hassle normal people who won't be a problem. In my area, the police are all over teenagers for loitering in parking lots on the weekends, but do nothing about the very obvious drug dealers in the local trailer park.
ls612 1y ago
This is intentional. "For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law".
threecheese 1y ago
Enforcement in my area has recently deployed camera sinto work zones, and dispatch automated tickets to any drivers exceeding the work zone-reduced speed limit. The cameras are there every day, regardless of whether or not anyone is working, pushing out tickets. I paid $90 + fees for speeding past it, opposite the median, on a weekend, and paying is easier than arguing. I can’t imagine how lucrative this is. It’s like the opposite of a cops salary.

ceinewydd 1y ago

This isn't really surprising from the UK. If you go back 15-20 years, taxing a vehicle to drive on public roads used to involve displaying a "Tax Disc" in your windscreen, on the off-side of the vehicle. They abolished this system in 2014 [1] because they'd long since reached saturation of permanent Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) readers [2] from >11000 cameras on UK roads, and scanning over 50 million vehicles per day. It's also common to have 'Average Speed' systems on major roads and even country roads where the accident rate exceeds a threshold defined by the local councils. Those will issue you a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) and points on your licence for a moving violation if you exceed the speed limit. Beyond the 'Average Speed' infrastructure is a giant number of fixed cameras which measure speed and capture imagery of your vehicle, number plate, and the driver and automatically issue the PCN for speeding, and mobile vans operated by the authorities and deployed anywhere they consider a "hotspot". All of this costs you money immediately to pay the PCN, costs you money over time because insurers hike their rates, and after 2-4 violations in 36 months, can result in you losing your ability to drive and trigger an extended "retake driving test" (after your disqualification period). This is much more draconian than the United States where in many states a moving violation (like a speeding infraction) will only be processed by a policeman pulling you over for a chat. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vehicle-tax-changes https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vehicle-tax-changes [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number-plate_recognition_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number-plate_recogni...

nmstoker 1y ago
With that battery of cameras and seemingly inevitable negative outcomes for speeders, it's unusual how many people continue to speed blatantly.
janalsncm 1y ago
> Those will issue you a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) and points on your licence for a moving violation if you exceed the speed limit That seems good? Either we think speed limit laws should be enforced or we don’t. In the bay area where the speed limit seems to be infinity the effective speed limit is around 80mph even if the posted limit is 65.
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electrondood 1y ago

While men claiming to be ICE get to wear plainclothes and gaiters/face masks as they snatch people off the street without presenting identification or a warrant.

jdkee 1y ago

Despite the Supreme Court ruling in Carpenter v. U.S., courts have generally given persons less rights to privacy when in public. States such as Illinois have an informed consent model of biometric data gathering.

budududuroiu 1y ago

I find it funny that the people that are outraged by ULEZ cameras as “control of the state” are always silent on issues such as facial recognition or Chat Control. Idk, maybe people should start vandalising these cameras

black_13 1y ago

[dead]

archagon 1y ago

N95 masks regain popularity. RFK Jr. bans all masking in public.