Tag Archives: riots

http://www.ghacks.net/2011/08/14/the-dangers-of-using-high-tech-facial-recognition-software-to-catch-criminals/

In light of the rioting in London, British police have been using CCTV in combination with facial-recognition software footage in order to identify and separate the criminal elements in the crowd. The article goes on to speculates on the need of creating a database for “confirmed” faces (primarily faces that can be linked to an identity). The article even illuminates the issue of quality control and some of the problems that lighting, distance, and clarity plays in distorting and inevitably making it harder to match. With facial recognition technology commonly found in television and movies unavailable, combined with the likely chance to misidentify individual (which could also be used to benefit criminals); it seems that British officials have the daunting task ahead of them. Also police fear that people who resemble rioters (solely the images) may be in danger by vigilante groups (which introduces certain notions of stigma).In the end the article alludes to the social media such as Facebook (750 million users) and its database, and the potential it may have for law enforcement if they were to be exploited.

Its relevance speaks to me in the article we read called “A means of Surveillance: The photograph as evidence in law”. It describes the insertion of the photograph gradually into institutions such as the police apparatus and its connection to power. The photograph or surveillance footage in the article’s case has the power (in conjunction with police power) to incriminate, or identify to the jury a person to the site of a “crime” or act of deviancy.