London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

I really don't understand why they do trials for this. What would be the failure case for the trial? "We carried out the trial for 6 weeks over X period of time, we arrested Y people, at that rate we've decided this is not compatible with modern liberal democracy, we would've traded a free society for Y+2 arrests over X period but we just didn't quite get there"?

As suggested by other people - this is just going to be used to identify, infiltrate and disrupt the numerous peaceful protests that the police aren't keen on in London.

The UK already has so much CCTV. Some believe it reduces drug-related, vehicle, and property crime, but most agree is has virtually no effect on violent crime (https://www.college.police.uk/research/crime-reduction-toolk...).

Even if this initiative is effective at reducing crime, I don't want to lose privacy or see a chilling effect in society where people are afraid because they know they're being watched.

Brazil was so right. We're just an inference away from being jailed. I'm not from UK but it shows how we are all helpless and see in plain conciousness what is coming. When did we lost the grip?

“Our deployments are intelligence-led and focused on identifying people wanted by the police or courts, including those suspected of serious offences and those who may be breaching bail conditions or court orders”

This is crazy. Could easily be used to track protesters who went to the an event the police didn’t like.

It’s a moot point. I’m saddened at the invasion of privacy and the intrusion on an individual’s civil liberties, but anonymous travel on the London Underground died when they made bank cards and contactless the primary way to get through the barriers.

I’m not saying that “this doesn’t matter because it’s slightly worse than before”. I’m saying the frog has been boiling for a long time.

I don’t want people being surprised as though THIS is the nail in the coffin of untracked movement across the city. As others have said, we’ve always been tracked. This is just them being open about their latest methods.

I hope this serves as a warning for citizens elsewhere: this is a slope that governments will only slide down further. There is no coming back from this in the UK.

Supermarkets in the UK point cameras at your face at self-checkout.

Roadside CCTV captures your registration plate and tracks your vehicle across the country.

Your ISP proactively shares your web history with the state.

Being an anonymous citizen in the UK has been an impossibility for at least 20 years.

Any weapons can and will be utilised against a perceived enemy. When that perceived enemy becomes /you/, you should expect these things to be used against you.

History has taught us that before.

We have seen in the last 10 years that liberal democracies are fragile things. Robust restrictions on the state’s ability to monitor, interfere with and restrict the daily lives of its citizens aren’t a luxury; they’re essential to protecting a free and just society.

Putting aside the social and legal implications of this trial, I find it very interesting how projects like this are often trumpeted to be successful and celebrated at launch (rather than when proven to work, or save costs or whatever) as though the hard bit was actually wading for months or years through several government and private IT bureaucracies, not making a system that delivers what it promises.

The surveillance of China without the prosperity or safety. At least in China I can leave my bag or laptop out of sight for a moment, same cannot be said of my home city of London. What good is all of this when hard criminals are let out of prison after 6 months. Clown country.

21st century authoritarianism. Humans learned nothing from the 20th century.

Just gonna drop this here for no particular reason

https://urban-privacy.com/pages/anti-surveillance-clothing

They weren't? That's more surprising given the UK surveillance state.

The way things keep devolving in Britain, the easiest path is to force everyone to wear a camera on their chest like the police do. Then you can arrest people who don't wear them because surely they have something to hide.

Lest they commit the offense of buying a baseball bat or being stabbed?

Oi, you have a loicense for that mate?

police have been running facial recognition at london protests for years already. so is this just making it official?

How will this handle face masks? Hijabs or Niqabs?

I don't see how this is any different from how traffic cameras are used. Hot take, but as long as the systems aren't abused by law enforcement I don't see the big deal.

Not really related to the written topic of this page, but I noticed there is a sideways red button with "Leave this site" that redirects you to 'https://www.google.co.uk/'. What could be the incentive behind this? Why not just close the tab?

> People who prefer not to enter the recognition zone will have alternative routes available

Looking forward to seeing the singnage there.

This must be especially inconvenient for those with criminal physiognomy.

For what it's worth, as a Brit, I assure you no one cares about this, and it's likely that most people, if asked, would support it.

The UK doesn't value liberty for liberty's sake like the US does. In the US there seems to be this notion that freedom is a universal good, where as in the UK people are quite comfortable with liberties being revoked if it means they feel safer or fewer people are doing things they don't like.

UK political debate today largely just consists of debates about what to ban next – loud fireworks, energy drinks, smoking, gambling, porn, not wearing headphones on public transport, praying for people having abortions, etc.

While this tech will obviously be used to clamp down on protests that are inconvenient to the government (as we've seen happen with protests in recent UK history), even these measures tend to be popular in the UK. Most protest groups are net-unpopular, therefore any movement the government makes to crack down on say Palestine protests, climate protests or immigration protests, are fairly popular here.

Imo the UK was accidentally a liberal country post-WWII to the early 1990s because of influence from the US, but culturally the UK isn't liberal and never was. We're a very socially conservative country and take a natural dislike to anyone who rocks the boat a little.

These new digital surveillance techniques are very much in line with British cultural conservatism, and follow a long history of UK mass surveillance.

As a Brit who inhabits the US desire for freedom I genuinely struggle to relate to Brits and it always makes me feel less insane when I come on here and find other people who value liberty too. But in my real life, I think I've genuinely only ever met one Brit who has shared my desire for freedom.

Technology that began in the private sector, retailers using facial recognition technology to profile customers, has now bled over violently into public life. I strongly believe in the right to be forgotten, and I strongly believe in the right to be peacefully invisible. No flock cameras. No facial recognition cameras. The intrusion and dangers are too great against any benefit.

It's only a matter of time until government forces a social credit score upon all of us back by these cameras.

> People who prefer not to enter the recognition zone will have alternative routes available

So what is the point ?

Fascist monarchy has facist policies shocker. So glad I left that hell hole.

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