London cops face court over live facial recognition creep • The Register

The Excessive Courtroom will hear from privateness campaigners this week who need to reshape the way in which the Metropolitan Police is allowed to make use of dwell facial recognition (LFR) tech.

Civil liberties group Large Brother Watch is supporting the case introduced by claimant and anti-knife crime campaigner Shaun Thompson, who mentioned that after being misidentified by LFR cameras in Croydon, police demanded he submit his fingerprints.

“I used to be misidentified by a dwell facial recognition system whereas coming dwelling from a group patrol in Croydon,” mentioned Thompson. “Law enforcement officials informed me I used to be a wished man and demanded my fingerprints though I might completed nothing improper. What occurred to me was surprising and unfair.”

The Excessive Courtroom listening to will happen on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the legal challenge [PDF] specializing in alleged violations of privateness rights, that are protected by Article 8 of the European Conference on Human Rights (ECHR).

Thompson’s attorneys, with enter from Large Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo, will argue that the Met’s LFR coverage is simply too permissive to be suitable with the human proper to privateness.

They may argue that the Met’s coverage, which permits the pressure to function LFR cameras in “crime hotspots,” and “entry routes” to these hotspots, is simply too broad a constraint, given that the majority elements of London might moderately fall beneath the “crime hotspot” definition.

Carlo additionally submitted her arguments to the case that the Met’s LFR insurance policies threaten the rights protected beneath Articles 10 and 11 of the Conference, as pop-up deployments allegedly prohibit folks’s capability to protest.

She mentioned: “The opportunity of being subjected to a digital id examine by police with out our consent virtually anyplace, at any time, is a severe infringement on our civil liberties that’s remodeling London. When used as a mass surveillance device, dwell facial recognition reverses the presumption of innocence and destroys any notion of privateness in our capital.

“We’re completely out of step with the remainder of Europe on dwell facial recognition. This is a chance for the courtroom to uphold our democratic rights and instigate much-needed safeguards towards intrusive AI-driven surveillance.”

The Excessive Courtroom listening to comes a month after the UK authorities introduced plans to “ramp up” police use of facial recognition and biometrics.

The Dwelling Workplace opened a consultation for specialists to weigh in on new legal guidelines that can govern a accountable enhance on this know-how’s use, in order that police can use it extra typically and with better confidence.

Sarah Jones, crime and policing minister, mentioned facial recognition know-how “is the most important breakthrough for catching criminals since DNA matching.”

“It has already helped take hundreds of harmful criminals off our streets and has large potential to strengthen how the police maintain us secure,” she added.

“We are going to increase its use in order that forces can put extra criminals behind bars and deal with crime of their communities.” ®