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- Hacker News
- Fare evasion will be a big use-case for facial recognition at railway stations. I wonder when they will admit it, if they haven't fairly secretively already. Same as bodyworn cameras (initially introduced to reduce assaults, now they admit they're used to tackle fare evasion too)
It really won't be long until your face is scanned well before you get to the barrier, then an alarm goes off and blocks the barrier. Or it detects barrier-pushing then automatically begins an investigation or issues a fine.
And of course there is facial recognition + AI for retail profit maximisation
https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/national/24397770.network-rail-...
Trust the railway as far as you can throw it...
by gib444 - I note this line in the article which suggests to me that they have very likely limited the watchlist and perhaps excluded certain racial groups to avoid more accusations of bias which leads to less arrests.
“A particularly important point is that watchlist growth has been deliberate, controlled and aligned to BTP policy. We began with a more limited watchlist whilst ensuring data quality, governance and safeguarding arrangements were robust.”
This reads to me as weasel words that basically imply they are almost certainly limiting the watch list to likely now avoid certain categories of people who they really don't want to catch because then they would inevitably end up fielding accusations of being 'institutionally racist'.
This is because last year in Croydon (along with various other areas in you search articles on the subject) they apparently have found quite a lot of alleged criminals with facial recognition technology. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cddpzglzrv7o "More than 170 alleged criminals, including a woman wanted for more than 20 years, were arrested during a six-month trial of live facial recognition (LFR) in south London."
But then there was also this one where it turned out it was a little bit too successful in picking up black people leading to accusations of racial bias, although it could also be there are just more people with criminal history in that community for various reasons. https://news.sky.com/story/essex-police-pauses-use-of-live-f... "Essex Police has paused the use of live facial recognition cameras (LFR) after a study found they identified more black people than other ethnic groups."
by fivefifty - I’m very against this type of pervasive surveillance, but that number seems implausible. The police may have only loaded a small group of suspects into the system, only targeted specific individuals, or some other reason we’re not aware of. The police protecting some criminals wouldn’t be a departure from standard practice in the UK.
- Man we technologists are so bad at dealing with societal issues.
We try to reinvent something that claims that keeps tabs on everyone and for sure will punish you if you don’t behave well but will reward you if do!
The thing has a name. It’s the religion.
by whatever1 - I've had an idea in the back of my head but I'm no businessman so have this one for free.
Build an AI model, train it from the catalogues of JD Sports and Sports Direct (and other brands like Stone Island etc.) and how to detect balaclavas, illegal electric bikes and e-scooters. Have it link to cameras and do a percentage chance using machine learning on chance of crime. Also increase the percentage if a 'wheely' is done (riding only on back wheel).
Would minority report the majority of crime in this country in one fell swoop.
Could call it ScroteScanner.
Some would call it discrimination but the majority of ASB I see around my area are people dressed/using those exact things.
If they start to catch-on (unlikely) then worse case we have a fancier looking society with gangsters in suits again.
by benbristow - my mom lives in small town that only has two roads in/out of town and the police have alprs on those. there's no violent crime there, and all the police department does is traffic (DWI's, speeding and parking tickets, and accidents) and respond to small town crime (noise complaints, stolen bicycle, stray/lost dogs etc). I think the only thing that the alpr has ever caught people for is out of date vehicle registrations - but now the police department wants a flock camera because they are "great crime fighting tools"by balderdash
- I was thinking about this with flock cameras the other day...what's our actual ROI? Was the world horrible before and these initiatives are going to close a monster crime gap or is this just a giant fishing expedition ... just because?by jwally
- 16 deployments for 6 months at rail stations - they must have been off 99% of the time to only scan 500k faces.
For scale 500k people is 2 days of Liverpool Street Stations daily average
by blitzar