British Transport Police extends live facial recognition trial into Underground stations
British Transport Police has expanded its live facial recognition trial to include London Underground stations, extending a surveillance program that was previously deployed at surface-level transport hubs.
Why this matters: Millions of people ride the Tube every day. Most of them have no idea they may now be scanned against a watchlist just to get to work. Live facial recognition is not a passive camera. It runs your face through a database in real time, every time. That is a fundamentally different kind of surveillance than CCTV. The trial label matters too — trials have a way of becoming permanent once the infrastructure is in place. Londoners deserve to know exactly where the cameras are, what list their faces are checked against, and what happens when the system gets it wrong.
Who should care: Privacy officers · Cybersecurity · General readers · Policy
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