Office worker, Ed Bridges caught on police facial recognition camera. He claimed the use of facial recognition is breaching his human rights, after when his face was scanned two times by South Wales Police. He has launched the first major legal challenge against the use of AFR, i.e. automated facial recognition technology.
He says ‘ we don’t live in the authoritarian state, but we live in a democracy. The police started using this technology against me as well as many other thousands of people in my area without any warning or consultation.’ He added that it is very hard to see that in what way the police could possibly justify such type of excessive use of such surveillance tool in this way.’
Out of two in one incident, Mr Bridges claimed that he had been shopping in Cardiff in 2017 December. He told media that ‘ I popped out of the office to do Christmas shopping and on the pedestrian shopping street in Cardiff there was a police van. The time till I can observe the words automatic facial recognition on the van, I had already captured by it.’ It struck me as a quite deep attack of my privacy.’ After that, he again scanned by Automatic Facial Recognition at a peaceful anti-arms protest.
He has since crowd-funded action aligned with South Wales police by claiming that the utilization of AFR breaches data protection and equality laws. He will be represented by campaign group Liberty who claimed South Wales Police had used the technology on about fifty occasions.
What actually is facial recognition
Facial recognition is a technique to identify or verify who a person is but scanning their face with the computer. The primary use of this technique is to ensure that a person is who they say there. This technique is used by law enforcement in many places counting China to create a suspect database and to spot criminals in crowds quickly. This facial recognition technique faces in crowds then compare conclusions with a watch list of images that can include missing people, suspect and person of interest. There are many other police forces those who utilize this technology at a public place like Metropolitan Police as well as Leicestershire Police. Those who had used this technology hope that it can assist tackle crime; however, campaigners argue it breaches civil liberty and privacy.
Yesterday, Dan Squires QC, representing officer worker Mr Bridges told the court that the technology permitted the police to monitor people’s activity in public in that way that they have never been able to perform before and without gain consent or use force. He added that ‘by this technique, you can easily capture almost instantly the biometric data of thousands of people. It has deep consequences for data protection rights and privacy along with the legal framework, which at present applies to utilize the AFR by police does not ensure those rights are sufficiently protected.’
On the other side details regarding AFR on a website set by South, Wales police specify that ‘ it will help the force to become smarter and make its patch safer. It will also work to ensure that the execution of this technique is in proportion while recognizing the requirement to balance security and privacy.’ Police also told the media that it would not comment on the case until it was finalized and solved.
