I have read this thread with some interest and thought I would use my first post here to tell you of my experience with the technology. I will say I am halfway through my 10 years on the SOR and also have a SHPO for the same period.

Croydon deployed the LFR (Live Facial Recognition) for three consecutive Thursday's leading up to Christmas. They were deployed in different areas of the town centre over the three days they were used. On the middle of these three Thursday's, I walked into Croydon as usual to get some shopping and noticed the camera vehicle and also 2/3 police vans parked behind. I did not think anything of it, as I have complied entirely throughout and have nothing to hide. 

As I walked towards the vans, I noticed a movement in the officers on the street and three officers approached me. I could see from devices in their hands, that my picture had appeared on the screen. They asked for my name, and also for identification. I showed them my driving licence and one officer took this away to the van that had the cameras attached. The other two officers stayed with me, and asked me not to put hands in pockets etc. This was less than 5 minutes from my house, therefore I was very self conscious and anxious about the proximity to home and anyone that would recognise me.

The officer returned with my driving licence and asked whether I had a mobile phone on me, to which I replied that I did. He then asked me to accompany him to the police van parked behind, and I was asked to take a seat in the van. He could see my conditions and he said that one of the conditions was not to have a device with access to the internet, I interjected and said that this was correct but this was only if not approved, which my phone was. I have had the phone for 3.5 years. He carried on and agreed that was correct. He took the IMEI number from the phone to check.

Unfortunately they could not access the PNC, therefore could not establish whether the phone was legitimate. I do not think they knew what to do, therefore I suggested I call my Liaison Officer, who I have a good relationship with to clarify. They gave me back my phone to make the call but both his mobile number and the office number, went straight through to voicemail. The officer managed to get through to him through his radio, and the control centre, but he was not in a position to clarify the IMEI at that moment. Luckily I have monitoring software on my phone, therefore my Liaison Officer asked them to let me show them, to prove this was the phone. I did this and they were satisfied. I was in the van for around 20 minutes, along with the 10 minutes on the pavement.

I must say all the officers were very pleasant, but my thought was that this technology was to find people who were wanted for crimes, or had warrants out for them. As mentioned I have complied throughout my time on the SOR, and had recently had my devices checked and my latest ARMS assessment done, which lowered my risk. I am now anxious that if this software is rolled out around the country, I could be stopped on many occasions and time wasted.

It was reported that:-

Officers from Croydon worked alongside the Met’s Territorial Support Group for the operation. “As a result of 22 alerts by the LFR technology, 10 people were arrested for offences including threats to kill, recall to prison for robbery and possession of an offensive weapon,” the Met said.

There were another eight people stopped who are “subject to sexual prevention orders”. The police checked whether they “were complying with their conditions”.

In its statement, the Met added: “A further four people who also had other court imposed conditions were identified correctly and their conditions checked. There were no false alerts.”

What are peoples views on this?
Am I right to be worried for the future, or do the positives outweigh the inconvenience?

Hi Punter99

First happy festive times and I hope you make the best of whatever you are doing my friend.

I do not disagree with the point of "wrong place wrong time" but I am just trying to encourage all that we should not let external pressures deviate from our aims. In a way this pressure can be like that saying about "you don't think about elephants until someone asks you if you are "

We all faced high levels of suspicion at first but our self focus on "rehabilitation" hopefully develops some creditability (not trust) in us by our monitors over time. Then if something happens and the gaze goes towards you just maybe it will be easier to deflect.

It is all about self belief and focus on our own aims. If you are asked about being somewhere and you have good reason to be there be strong as it is only our "shame" resurfacing.

As discussed many time in the past, there is nothing we can do about the thoughts of others as they are out of our control.

Be Happy.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope is for tomorrow else what is left if you remove a mans hope.

It's an imperfect solution, as not everyone has a driving licence and the police need up to date photos, whereas the DVLA ones are often many years old. But still worrying.

On JASB's point, about only those who are intending to re-offend should be concerned, I don't agree. It's the way in which SO are always under suspicion which can lead to people being accused of having done something, just because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Something which he has illustrated very well, with an example from his own experience. 

Hi
One of the beauties of this Forum is in the simple fact we all see things that others may not see; so no I hadn't and thank you.

A positive aspect is that the story has /is approaching this the "checks" on everyone not SO specifically.  This does enable our shock/outrage to be concealed within that of a larger group and not as most times, directed. Obviously as time goes on if the outrage increases the JS will probably highlight offenders or sex offenders to gain support.

I live in a block of flats and once I opened my door to about 4 officers in their protective gear. quite disturbing.

When i asked what they want they said they were looking for someone and was he with me? I said I didn't know the individual and why did they think he was with me? They wanted to come in but I asked if they had a warrant, which was no and they did not reply when I asked if they had searched the other flats. I again repeated no to both the individual and their search.

I contacted my OM to inform him of the facts and asked why the approach in this manner. I also stressed that if they had been more civil I would of allowed one to come in to show I was stating the truth.
The simple reason for their approach was because at that time a "dealer" was living with a female in a flat (waiting for eviction) they could see my record and took a default assumption not individual reality view of me i.e. my being involved with him becuase I was an EX Offender!!!

All this facial recognition and releasing names to appeal for anyone to come forward is just part of their process of:

• Persauding society they are on their side and understand their concerns;
• Present an illusion of their capabilities e.g. are the same as "hollywood";
• but also to put doubt of success in the mind of the offender.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope is for tomorrow else what is left if you remove a mans hope.

I don't know if any of you are aware of this. GB News is reporting it as well, but their page is crawling with adverts.

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If you are to punish a man retributively you must injure him. If you are to reform him you must improve him. And men are not improved by injuries. (George Bernard Shaw)

Hi

There are test (contained) and real (open to interference) environments.

With budgets as they are you are not going to get "hollywood" tech at every corner or event.
You are 100% correct on the follow up point but as I mentioned, disguises can be attempted. Not all photos will be crystal daylight clear as even in my disco days the rooms where dark, smokey had light effects etc.
The only point I am trying to highlight is we should not stress on what we can't control.

If you are allowed and not aiming to offend, enjoy your life.
However if you are aiming to offend then you deserve all the actions taken against you.

As an ex-offender our issue is balancing our actions to ensure our own well beings against the suspicion of some.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope is for tomorrow else what is left if you remove a mans hope.

Not sure what you mean by a real environment. It has been used out on the streets, at large scale events, in both London and South Wales and some people have already been spotted as a result. Internet connectivity rarely an issue these days in an urban area and I imagine the speed is pretty quick. They have a camera van, just like the ones they use for speed cameras, but presumably also a team of people on the ground, who can pursue a suspect. 

But even that's not the case, they still have a backup, which is to visit the person at home, at a later date and confront them with the evidence. "You were at this location at this time, you have breached your SHPO, you're nicked!"

As for disguises, it measures the distance between points on peoples faces, such as the distance between the nose and the chin. So without a full face covering, its not easy to fool, although there probably are ways to do it.

Hi
The tech may work in matching to a dbase in real time in a "limited test environment" but I would be interested in seeing it work in a "real environment" under load and stress conditions. For example the internet connectivity would have to be perfect not to create a "time lag".

I would also suggest; at the present moment, that the time it takes to scan, read, match an individual of interest, there would be a strong case to suggest that the individual would have moved on; if not left.
Therefore you have the dilemma of an OM visiting the individual with a "likeness" to question them. I think; as I mentioned if the individual was of an opinion to offend they would of use some disguise, so the authorities "may" have issues proving the identity?

I do take your point but my case is that rather than feel ashamed to go to a gig with no aims of committing an offence, be aware of the scenarios that could arise and enjoy it.
 

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope is for tomorrow else what is left if you remove a mans hope.

The technology works and it can match faces to those on the database in real time. So they do have the resources for individual operations, but the fact that it has only been deployed at certain events so far, suggests that it is still too difficult to roll out nationwide. However, if it were integrated into the network of CCTV cameras that already exist, then the potential to create a system like that in the TV series, 'Person of Interest' would be there. I've no doubt that is where they are trying to get to.

And you are right that having such a system, even in limited form, does act as a deterrent, but mostly it only deters those who would be at no risk of committing offences anyway. The people who are determined to offend will still try to beat the system.

Hi
Personally I like to assume that as with most things announced by those in "authority", the "principle of the purpose/tool" is or could possibly be, designed to be proactive towards deterring crime!
In other words to persuade the majority of "society" protection is being installed to ensure they are safe. Remember a lot of people think crime dramas are 100% factual!

In regard to the use at "gigs", there may of been facial recognition software / cameras there but the resourcing and computing power required to view and match and so act immediately if an offender is "matched" is enormous. The simple question would be "do they have the resources available" to act?

Concider as well that if a known or unknown offender was inclined to attend on of these events "with" the intention to offend, would they not wear some form of disguise; especially as it is now being published?

Just the article being inserted into the mainstream media it is able to achieve the aims of the "authorities": (1) show society they are focused on crime, (2) creating concern amongst any who is considering either offending or re-offending.

Remember the software used in the latest "mission Impossible" film is not at that stage! Yet that is lol




Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope is for tomorrow else what is left if you remove a mans hope.

There is already a ton of regulation around its use and South Wales police were found to be using it unlawfully, as they didn't comply with some of the regs.
But they have carried on using it anyway!

Facial recognition, in theory, is a great tool and in theory, I have no issues with it. The issue is with the regulation of it, and whether or not we can trust our authorities to use it in a way to benefit everyone. If someone has legal restrictions to stay away from an area, I feel that facial recognition could be a great tool to enforce this.  

Facial recognition could have a great benefit when it comes to things like ticketing for things like season passes, train ticketing etc. It would be easily enforceable and speed up processing of people and help maximise revenue.

The issue is the regulation of this data. For example there would need to be very specific time constraint on how long data would be stored, who could use such data and for what (ie. A train company could hold your data for the duration of your rail journey for the sole purpose of making sure you have paid your ticket). Equally, if it is to enforce the requirements of a court order, times need to be very specific and set down by law, and an independent third party responsible for the monitoring and reporting of data, with non-required data being deleted daily. But with governments etc. we know this would never happen - everything would be perpetual. 

Yes, the main source for the watchlists is the PNC, but they can use other images too, including those scraped from social media. So if they were looking for someone who is wanted and who isn't on the PNC, they could add extra images to the watchlist, but not to the PNC.

The watchlists are not permanent databases, They are assembled shortly before the live facial recognition tech is deployed and destroyed shortly afterwards. But in future, that could change...

It's not really a national database, as there are so many people who aren't on it. The PNC is effectively a database, and someone applied filters to extract terrorist suspects and people on the SOR. I'm sure it has happened before (remember, I'm a cynic) and this was just the first time they admitted it.

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If you are to punish a man retributively you must injure him. If you are to reform him you must improve him. And men are not improved by injuries. (George Bernard Shaw)

It might not be named as such, but we effectively do have one because how else could they create the alleged temporary database used at the Beyonce gig? The fact they're doing it at all means the genie is out of the bottle, doesn't it? I haven't heard the rest of Dom's interview yet.

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Fighting or Accepting - its difficult to know which is right and when.

I don't think there is a facial recognition database in this country. China has one, but everybody in China has a digital id card, with their photo on, which we don't have.
But the danger is, that by merging together some of the existing databases, e.g. the PNC and the Passport or DVLA databases, you could create one.

I've just edited back my post because this thread is in the public area. Oops.

Bringing it back to the thread. Seemingly, they do seem to power on with ideas which are floated out there. Another point, imagine if you ping the facial recognition and you're with friends who don't know about your past and you incorrectly get pulled aside. I suppose like passport control. It'd just ruin your day for no reason whatsoever, you might then have to lie to explain why it happened etc. So many sledgehammers and walnuts.

Also this post on X with Dominic Cummings, is he talking about the facial recognition database?! I can't think of what else it could be off the top of my head.......

Also, I wouldn't be shocked if they brought in the name change ban idea, which would then quickly be "normal" before anyone has chance to challenge. And the ban would be justified by some copper because "tenuous rare story from years ago". I'd keep that in mind if anyone is considering it presently...


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Fighting or Accepting - its difficult to know which is right and when.

I don't remember the exact sequence of events, but presume I must have been arrested at some point. A lot of the time, they are just fishing, because all they have to go on is an ip address and an allegation. They can still arrest you on suspicion before having found any images though and even though the interview is "voluntary", you can't refuse to go to the station with them, or else they will arrest you then.

I'm not punter99 but that's different from my experience.

Mine was a knock on the door, told why they were there (suspicion of images being downloaded at this address). I was arrested and taken to the police station while 2 (maybe 3? Can't fully remember) other officers ripped my house apart and seized computers and whatnot. At the station I was booked in, stuff from my pockets catalogued and put away somewhere etc. then I had my fingerprints taken, a swab inside my mouth and a couple of mug shots and then dumped in a cell for a few hours before being taken out for questioning.

For what it's worth, my mugshot was never in the paper, in fact my image was never shown at all by the news (social media is a different story).

Correct. Raided. No arrest, I did a voluntary interview but was told to no comment. I continued to work. I had the hope of a caution. Postal requisition arrived and it all hit the fan. I didn't have my mugshot until about a year after sentencing. Lucky in some respects because when I was in the paper, they couldn't get a picture because there wasn't one.
Is that not what usually happens?

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Fighting or Accepting - its difficult to know which is right and when.