Britain’s facial recognition drive is turning sinister
A commentator writing in UnHerd argues that the United Kingdom's expanding use of facial recognition technology has taken on a troubling character, suggesting the direction of the program has moved beyond what was publicly justified.
Why this matters: Britain has been rolling out facial recognition faster than almost any other liberal democracy, in public spaces, at events, and through live police cameras. Most people did not vote on that. The concern is not just accuracy or misidentification, though both are real problems. It is that scanning the faces of everyone on a street treats the whole public as suspects by default. Once that infrastructure is in place, it does not shrink. It tends to grow, and the people who built it rarely give it back.
Who should care: Privacy officers · Cybersecurity · General readers · Policy
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