‘Successes’ of facial recognition technology
THE police’s use of specialist facial recognition technology software to catch thieves has even been used to identify a dead body.
South Wales Police began using Automated Facial Recognition (AFR) Locate in June this year during the week of Cardiff hosting the Uefa Champions League final between Real Madrid and Juventus.
The force was also the first in the UK to have a positive match using AFR, leading to the arrest of a 34-year-old man wanted on a recall to prison.
In August, the force started using AFR Identify which allows officers to load images of an individual they’re looking for and compare them against 500,000 custody images to see if there’s a match.
Since July 28, South Wales Police have used AFR to make 191 positive matches, leading to 50 charges and 12 arrests, and eight prison sentences handed down.
The charges included theft, sexual offences, burglary, robbery and drug offences.
The technology has also helped the officers to identify a body in a non-suspicious sudden death case.
The facial recognition system will now be used when they need to identify a person who is unconscious or deceased and also in cases where a person is suffering from Alzheimer’s or a similar condition.
Superintendent Alun Morgan, head of Fusion at South Wales Police, said: “The past six months have been a resounding success in terms of validating the technology, building confidence amongst our officers and the public whilst offering a potential area for growth for us with the technology in the future.
“The overall effectiveness of facial recognition has been high, evidenced in part by the positive match figures of AFR Identify and the number of charges being brought against offenders.
“Our confidence in AFR as a valuable addition to our operational toolkit means that we will be extending the trial until March 2018 when an evaluation will be done in order to develop our findings further.”
Supt Morgan also addressed concerns surrounding privacy which have been brought up in relation to the force’s use of the technology.
He added: “Throughout the trial South Wales Police has been very cognisant of concerns about privacy and we have built checks and balances into our methodology to make sure our approach is justified and balanced.
“We have had detailed discussions with all interested regulatory partners, including the local Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the Home Office Biometrics Programme, as well as the Surveillance Camera Commissioner, to ensure that we are considering the wider needs in relation to the Data Protection Act and to ensure that the deployment of this technology is proportionate whilst recognising the need to balance security and privacy.”