Cheshire Police conduct First Live Facial Recognition Deployment Under Operation Vigilant
Cheshire Police carried out their first live facial recognition deployment as part of Operation Vigilant, marking the force's entry into real-world use of the surveillance technology in public spaces.
Why this matters: Every time a new police force goes live with facial recognition, the technology becomes more normal and the debate gets harder to have. People in Cheshire were scanned without choosing to participate. That is not a technicality. It is the whole issue. Facial recognition in public spaces means your face becomes a credential the state can check without stopping you or telling you. The technology makes mistakes, and those mistakes land harder on some groups than others. The question is not whether the operation caught anyone. It is who decided this was acceptable, and what oversight exists when it goes wrong.
Who should care: Privacy officers · Cybersecurity · General readers · Policy
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