A recent story in The Guardian documents British law enforcement’s plan to use facial recognition software to scan the faces of thousands of attendees at an upcoming music festival in London. The article reports that police describe it as a “pilot project intended to look for suspected troublemakers to keep those attending safe.”
The police will scan faces and then check them against databases of images of people who have been previously arrested in order to identify potential troublemakers at the event.
Civil liberties advocates say that police lack legal authority for this action, and civil rights activists are concerned that law enforcement has chosen a predominantly Afro-Caribbean celebration to test this technology.
Law enforcement’s specific concern about this festival probably stems from the fact that there were hundreds of arrests made there last year, and many officers claimed that they were assaulted during the event.
But if police conclude that this use of facial recognition technology is successful, they will likely use it to spot suspects at a variety of events, from soccer matches to rock concerts to political rallies. The police rationale will be the importance of identifying individuals who may incite violence (such as gang members) or who may be involved in terrorist actions (such as known members of radical groups, sadly a serious problem in England, as demonstrated by the horrific attack at a pop concert in Manchester back in May 2017).
However, there are continuing concerns about the technology, including the danger of inaccuracy; someone might be wrongly detained because the facial recognition software incorrectly identified him or her as a dangerous individual. There are also concerns that police could use the data to track people (particularly ethnic minorities) illegitimately, including people with no criminal background and who have done nothing wrong.
The UK already makes extensive use of CCTV cameras in the name of public safety. The police software that scans faces, if eventually used in combination with CCTV cameras, would provoke unpleasant comparisons to the fictional England ruled by Big Brother that George Orwell described in his classic novel “1984,” in which constant government surveillance of the entire population was virtually inescapable.
Police control of crowds is a legitimate problem around the developed world, given numerous recent terrorist attacks in Europe and mass shootings in the United States. However, critics are right to worry about whether this surveillance technology will be used impartially and responsibly.
One hopes that governments will regulate this technology and restrict law enforcement’s use of it to rare situations. Courts should require that police provide clear evidence of an imminent threat to public safety at a crowded event before granting police the ability to use facial recognition technology.
One thing’s for certain – most of us may not be able to take privacy and anonymity for granted when we attend pubic events in the future.