Home Office’s latest CCTV idea tip of the iceberg
Big Brother really might be watching you.
Kent Police confirmed this week it has been in discussions with the Home Office over potentially using facial recognition technology to help find missing and vulnerable people.
The fancy tech works by using CCTV cameras to scan the faces of everyday people going about their business, and then matching that data to existing images already held on a database.
Both parties are clearly well aware of the public’s fears over the sensitive issue of surveillance and have made it very clear in all correspondence that such proposals are only at a discussion stage and if ever rolled out, it would be used retrospectively, rather than ‘live’.
Can we really believe this, though? Is this surely not the start of
The fine balance between allowing the police to the protect the public and allowing us all the right to our own privacy is a debate that will no doubt continue to rumble on for generations.
But it’s hard not to look at what’s happening in China and be a little worried.
The Asian superpower is in the process of building the world’s most powerful facial recognition system, which could have the power to identify any one of its
1.3 billion citizens within three seconds.
Using their own databases, the system is being touted as being able to make a correct match with around 90% accuracy.
It’s hard to feel comfortable knowing we may soon be being watched around the clock, under total state control.
Authorities in the UK will try and play this down, but once you open Pandora’s box, it’s difficult to close it again.