WA facial recognition trial scans 1.38m faces
A facial recognition trial in Western Australia scanned approximately 1.38 million faces, according to a report by Oz Arab Media. No further details about the program's scope, legal basis, or oversight are available from the excerpt.
Why this matters: 1.38 million faces is not a pilot. That is a population-scale scan. Most of those people almost certainly did not know it was happening. Facial recognition run at that volume means the government can place individuals at locations without a warrant, a stop, or any interaction at all. The technology is also less accurate on darker-skinned faces, which matters in a program apparently flagged by Arab-community media. The real issue is not whether the trial worked. It is who approved it, what the data is kept for, and whether anyone outside government gets to ask those questions.
Who should care: Privacy officers · Cybersecurity · General readers · Policy
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