Trial of live facial recognition in London stations ends with a false positive and no arrests
Source: The Guardian ·
Freedom of information request finds six-month trial cost £320,000, used almost 100 police hours and led to just one – incorrect – alertA six-month trial of live facial recognition (LFR) technology in London’s railway stations that cost more than £320,000 and almost 100 hours of police officers’ time ended in one false match against a watchlist of suspects and no arrests.More than half a million…
From the source
A six-month trial of live facial recognition (LFR) technology in London’s railway stations that cost more than £320,000 and almost 100 hours of police officers’ time ended in one false match against a watchlist of suspects and no arrests. More than half a million faces were scanned between February and July this year in some of the capital’s busiest transport hubs during the British Transport Police (BTP) trial of the surveillance technology, which aimed to help catch offenders and people breaching court orders. A freedom of information document obtained by Liberty Investigates and shared with the Guardian shows that equipment hire and police staffing for the 18 deployments across the trial cost the taxpayer £320,786 and led to only one alert on a watchlist, which turned out to be an incorrect identification, also known as a false positive. Last month BTP announced it was extending the trial for a further four months and expanding the deployments to include London Underground…