UK’s Controversial Facial Recognition Tech Hits The Road

You’ve probably gathered that Britain has developed a bit of a crush on surveillance. Not the kind you might associate with espionage thrillers or Cold War paranoia, but a distinctly modern version that looks suspiciously like a white van parked near your local grocery store, loaded with more cameras than a Hollywood red carpet.

This time, the government has taken things a step further, and if you’re in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, or a few other lucky zip codes, you might be about to get your very own mobile facial recognition unit.

Yes, the Home Office has given the green light to a national fleet of surveillance vans, ten of them, decked out with live facial recognition (LFR) technology. Think of them as ice cream trucks for the surveillance state.

Except instead of handing out ice cream cones, they’re quietly checking whether your face matches someone on a police watchlist. Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley, and Hampshire will now have the pleasure of deploying these biometric buses, and if you’re feeling left out, don’t worry. They’re bound to expand further once the government remembers the rest of the map.

The official line is that this isn’t about catching low-level offenders or trying to ruin your day at the funfair; it’s about serious crimes like rape, murder, and assault. The big stuff. And if you’re not wanted for any of those, well, apparently you’ve got nothing to worry about. Just keep smiling and pretend the van isn’t there.

But let’s not get carried away. Despite what the ministers say, the facts have an awkward way of surfacing. This glorious techno-policing experiment has already been caught moonlighting at events like concerts and football matches, and even chasing down ticket touts. Ticket touts. Nothing screams national emergency like someone selling a pair of Taylor Swift seats for £500 on Craigslist.

Rebecca Vincent of Big Brother Watch said, “Police have interpreted the absence of any legislative basis authorizing the use of this intrusive technology as carte blanche to continue to roll it out unfettered.” Which is a wonderfully polite way of saying the cops are doing whatever they want because nobody’s told them not to.

Now, to be fair, the Home Office has insisted they’re being “measured” and “proportionate.” According to Dame Diana Johnson, the Minister for Saying Everything Is Fine, signs will be posted to let you know when your face is being vacuumed into a database, and anything captured will be deleted after the operation ends. Which is a bit like saying, “We only peek into your windows during dinner, and we promise not to keep the footage.” Comforting.

In a statement that would make Orwell blink, Ryan Wain from the Tony Blair Institute, yes, that Tony Blair, defended the use of LFR with the reassuring line: “Not on the list? Your face will be pixelated, and no data will be stored, end of.” That’s it. Just trust us. Because if there’s one thing history has taught us, it’s that large, unaccountable systems never, ever make mistakes.

Tell that to Shaun Thompson.

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