Facial recognition can look like a quick fix for catching offenders and preventing crime. But when Norfolk Police used it in Norwich last week, the system scanned tens of thousands of people and produced only one identification that could be acted on.
Of course, I understand public concern and frustration about crime, and I understand why people want tools that feel like they might help. I also want the police, and all thewider services which address the causes of crime, to have the resources they need to do their jobs. But this technology is not a silver bullet. False identifications create extra work because officers still have to stop people, check identities and review footage. In some trials, police spent more time handling false alerts than genuine matches.
Civil liberties are at risk. UK trials of this technology have produced false matches at very high rates, leading to people being wrongly stopped, questioned, or arrested. Independent studies reveal the technology is far more likely to misidentify Black people, including people like me. Even former Metropolitan Police superintendent Leroy Logan was wrongly flagged in tests, despite being a senior Black police officer.
I am also concerned about what could be done with the data collected by systems like this. We should not build an infrastructure now that could be misused later.
Read the Evening News report here.