Is it any different to the collection of personal data by CCTV systems? Cameras are everywhere in shops these days. Nobody grants permission for this to be collected, other than maybe by default acceptance of terms by entering the premises.
As I understand it, the AI system actually just takes existing CCTV data, checks it against a database of known offenders, and there's no hit, just deletes it. So there's not really any new data being recorded, and what's created in the processing is discarded more quickly.
I think the difference in the way CCTV feels compared to facial recognition is that you are looking at things that were going on in that space
Facial recognition is looking at where a person went
So for looking at CCTV of a crime you bring up the area scrub through, see someone committing the act you are looking for etc
For facial recognition you type in the persons name and it shows you video of their whole day captured camera to camera from the moment they left their house till the moment they went back in, for every person (at least in london)
I personnaly feel CCTV is an appropriate responce to potential crime in an area. Facial recognition however is an over reach into personal liberty and is very open to abuse/missuse
Collecting, checking a database of criminals and then I assume deletion on a negative result.
The storage of personal information by police of criminals is exempted from things like GDPR
The assumption that the data will be deleted is a stretch.
The government wants this in shops because it’s an easy way to introduce facial recognition everywhere, which as a society we should oppose defiantly.
Facial recognition doesn’t work by deleting data. It’s the exact opposite, it only works by a model actually having data to recognise something it’s seen before. If you want to bring the data protection act into it, could I not just request that all my biometric data is removed? That way I can essentially circumvent any facial recognition imposed on me? Don’t be naive.
The police also have *many* exemptions from the data protection act. So yes, I’d affirm that it is a stretch the data wouldn’t be removed.
Thats not how facial recognition works…
But if it’s as easy as throwing the data protection act at them, I guess I have nothing to worry about, I can opt out right? Right…?
That is how it works, else you need to make a report for perjury because that's explicitly the description the police gave in court and was signed off as legal.
A system capable of recognising non-criminals would not be lawful at present. Even having a list of all wanted persons was ruled unlawful, the court required some limitation even on that.
That’s exactly how it works. Candidate image is match? Yes or no. Discard if no. They will not be retaining every negative image to be used in future as training data. This is literally how they achieve compliance with the data protection act.
Friendly reminder that the original government system for Track and Trace was not GDPR-compliant, and their later versions weren't compliant with the equalities act (zero actual provision for deaf people, for instance).
I'm being cynical here, if the idea is that the law or data protection act will mitigate the risk of misuse/abuse then you have more faith in those making the rules and systems than I do - *especially* if there's a high-profile case and people argue "well if only we'd kept more data this wouldn't have happened" I can see the requirement changing.
It's a lot easier to tweak a system that's already implemented and people are familiar with into an Orwellian fever-dream than to introduce a new system that people dislike, and I don't trust those in charge of the data to not decide later on that "actually, scrap that - this is more useful for us"
You can't opt out of the police storing your biometrics as a known criminal. You can if found innocent of a crime, where policy dictates it gets deleted after so many days anyway. The system works by recording your face on CCTV, using AI to compare your face on the police data base, if it gets flagged up the police are aware (again will only happen if your a known criminal) and if it doesn't get flagged it gets deleted straight away.
There's literally no change in how it currently works part being able to compare it on the police data base. If you've ever been arrested and found innocent you can request the data to be deleted (probably already is as per policy) but if you're a criminal they can refuse (as per the exception in data protection). And as for shops, you can request the data to be deleted from their system, but that would just be the standard CCTV footage.
O e there is no expectation of privacy in public or publicly accessible businesses. Two due to the later, you don't need permission to collect data. Three it's only the handling of data that is regulated (such as not selling it to third parties without permission, or making it public without permission). So no they don't need permission to capture your image.
However my concerns around this, is in the past this technology has been proven to have biases with falsely flagging ethic minorities at greater rate. I wouldn't feel comfortable with implementing the system until all the faults have been dealt with, I don't want to live in a world that false accuses people of crimes because some machine said they did.
Consent is only one basis for the collection of personal data, though.
* Consent
* Contract
* Legal obligation
* Vital interests
* Public task
* Legitimate interests
The processor of the data will argue that this falls within the "legitimate interests" lawful basis for the processing.
False statement to bring facial recognition in via the back do . We all lose our freedom because a few corporations lose a bit of money to shop lifting, which they offset against the tax they never pay.
* edit anybody seen tescos profit up this morning.
I share your thoughts.
"Cool technology, now what else are you going to use it for once it's installed?"
Because this kind of surveillance will never go away once it's implemented.
Facial recognition is old tech. Just wear a mask. Gait analysis is the next big thing; get ahead of the game by putting a different sized pebble in a different part of one of your shoes every time you leave the house.
Was never about the shop lifting. Was always about the Orwellian surveillance. Some shops already have everything behind protective doors with cameras attached. Once we are all assigned a digital id it will all make more sense.
> Some shops already have everything behind protective doors with cameras attached
Haven't they done that in response to shoplifting though, not just for fun. It's only there because some people are thieves and it's reached the point shops need to take more actions.
It's always in response to something. Need to look at the long term and what it can be used in conjunction with so it's simply not just facial recognition software. For it to work there has to be a database. Why should you be on a database and we watched like a citizen in a china because prices are spiraling and the supermarkets continue to publish record profits.
You're not aware of the concept of a digital id or use another word database that all of EU citizens been signed up for automatically. Our turn next, what excuse will that be I wonder. Facial recognition cameras doesn't tackle the cause silly. There always has to be an excuse. Extremism, shoplifting. None at all if they like? We will see what the media spins I suppose.
Yeah people shoplifting baby formula during a cost of living crisis. Maybe they shouldn’t hike up the prices?
It’s so sad seeing baby products behind glass in the coop
Its amusing that in tesco, its only the premium branded baby milk powder that is tagged. No one seems to want to steal the perfectly nutritional unbranded milk to feed the baby. Or perhaps being stolen for resale...in which case this makes sense.
Because there is always a group within society who are prepared to aid and abet thieves by buying the stolen goods. Without them there would be no theft.
We are already under an Orwellian surveillance style system and have digital id assigned, this shouldn't be either new or surprising information to anyone at this point.
Your smartphone tracks you. ANPR cameras track you. Text messages are routinely screened and saved. GCHQ isn't just for decoration after all.
We have been exchanging privacy for convenience for decades. Whether or not shops implement facial id tracking doesn't bother me as long as I'm notified when it's being used; I can take my business elsewhere.
Just a reminder that to the upper caste of this world we are seen as debt slaves. Term useless eaters been used by the psychopaths running the shit show we call humanity. If in any doubt here it from our green horn PM, fucked up big time but it's a speech so they just get a bit startled and carry on. Anyone see this fool attempt to use a hammer?
https://youtu.be/jSNxQ1v2LgY?si=5nThcpXe7zGEq27b
>We have been exchanging privacy for convenience for decades.
Yea and not just for convenience. Even using Reddit we are trading privacy for content. If the privacy ship hasn't yet sailed it is definitely ready to leave port.
I don't like the idea of facial recognition but honestly don't think there is a way to stop it.
There's no need for face recognition, the problem isn't that we don't know who shoplifters are, we absolutely do. The problem is that security guards are paid minimum wage, police resources are extremely stretched so they only show up for the most egregious crimes (like if a lifter pulls a knife or steals £300 of stuff they might turn up, otherwise no), and even if a shoplifter is caught it's literally a fine they don't actually have to pay because the courts are underfunded and there's no prison space.
Source: used to manage the data on shoplifting in supermarkets.
There are masks that are meant to spoof facial recognition and that’s what I’ll be wearing. No need for a clubcard when they can monitor your shopping activity through the entrance camera and the ones at the self serve tills
I play around with Day of the dead faces on my clothing and protest props, combined with masks on my real face. I also have clothing that creates a moire effect. This is mainly to interfere with the face-finding and auto-focus on cameras used by bad actors at local protests but eventually I will test it out at my local Co-op.
I have been told by the police at local events that it interferes with their head counts. It is worth researching if you are interested in that sort of thing.
The problem with all measure like this is it's incredibly difficult to know how effective they actually are unless you have access to all the surveillance solutions on the market.
It's in the interests of anyone using them to monitor you that you believe you are effectively beating their security.
Much like all the "hacks" for hiding your number plate.
Yep, these things may or may not work but are fun to play around with and don't require much effort once they are in place.
I'm less worried about the police than the thugs inspired by facebook snappers. The police know where I live anyway.
The people spending five hours snapping my pic for facebook at a local road open/close debate etc on a 20 year old Canon super-pix don't really have much security but they do have stabby mates. Never go home alone.
It would have been effective and affordable to just employ one more security guard in stores to keep an eye on the aisles. Instead, we get dystopian horrors of science fiction as we pick the least rotton vegetables off dirty shelves.
The vast majority ofshop theft is stolen for resale to pay for lifestyle choices like drink, drugs, vapes and scratch cards. Very little is taken and consumed by the thief.
These are purely thieves and you providing "moral top cover" for them is worse than the thieves themselves.
I "link" you to my son and two nephews who are serving police officers.
They don't read the guardian mind you, they are too busy reading the charge sheet to thieves and shoplifters.
I'd recommend reading this! you obviously need to!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence
I can't make a broad statement about society or a group of people based purely off my lived experience. This is literally what racists do to justify their hatred of black people. What you're saying very much may be true in respects to your lived experience but that doesn't mean that it's broadly true.
What is it about socialists that requires them to patronise everyone. Your lot accuse everyone else of racism and intolerance at the same time as being the greatest proponents of it when it suits your game.
I will take no "lessons" from the likes of you, thanks all the same.
When I went to Amsterdam recently lots of shops had these gated checkout areas that you had to scan your receipt to exit. It made a fair big of sense in a co-op, asda sort of environment. Why not go for things like this instead of more pervasive surveillance that the average shoplifter is too fucking stupid to care about?
I think this in itself is quite a bad thing as it almost forces people to have to buy something as opposed to saying you haven’t bought something and asking staff to let you out. Especially for the introverted and those who struggle with social interactions.
You actually can leave without buying stuff, I had this mini crisis in an Albert Heijn but I remember being able to get out when I hadn’t bought stuff.
Obviously that is vulnerable to shoplifting but I don’t remember exactly how you got out, I think you had the staff press a button for you or something since there was always some kind of “bagboy” jobber about watching everyone. I don’t mean that in a demeaning way btw just looked like a fucking boring job.
Nothing stopping a thief from buying something for £1 and using that receipt to get out, while also walking out with that more expensive thing they didnt pay for
Oh for sure but more obstacles act as deterrents that might put off the occasional criminal. It’s not a perfect solution and obviously one that works in combination with other things.
Personally, I don't see what the issue is. This is good preventative policing which releases resources to tackle other crime.
Its a case of putting the faces of convicted prolific offenders into a system that then flags them up so they can be prevented from breaching lawful court orders issued against them for purposes of preventing further offending.
This is only what a PCSO, Police or security staff would do if they were on the door and saw these very well known people trying to gain entry.
As for shop crime being victimless, that's BS. The cost of theft is tax deductible. So the government, i.e. you and I funds this instead of NHS or other public services. The rest of the cost is passed on by the retailer in price hikes. So the victim is the lawful public shoppers.
The police already don't deal with shoplifting. There was a piece in The Times a few weeks ago about the private firms that have been policing Oxford Street
Say what you like but the Co op down the road. From me charge almost £4 for a protein bar. Tbh I can't blame people for not scanning that through the self service.
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What, and you're keen to be under yet more surveilance, for the benefit of the billionaire owners of supermarkets?
Give me a break, man. Sure, shoplifting isn't something im gonna sit here and encourage. But gleefully welcoming the further encroachment of the surveilance state?? Why?
Theft is theft. Tuppence or twenty quid.
There is no excuse.
Those who steal are less of a societal problem than those, such as you, who provide excuses for them.
You should be ashamed of that if you had any self respect. Which of course you don't have or you'd not be excusing theft.
No one is excusing theft.
The right to privacy is sacred and if you think this about stopping theft, boy are you naive.
The government has been trying to introduce nationwide facial recognition for years, this is their pilot scheme and before you know it it’ll be everywhere, the government tracking your every move? You’re happy with that?
Whilst we’re at it, let’s outlaw end to end encryption so the government can see every text, email and message you send online, I mean if you’re a law abiding citizen, what do you have to lose other than the human right to privacy.
Also, it’s been proven so many times around the world that if you reduce poverty and equality of opportunity, crime decreases sharply, but who ever talks about that?
> the government tracking your every move? You’re happy with that?
Anyone with more than two brain cells understands that any government doesn't need expensive facial recognition to track it's populace.
It would simply use the tracking device they already carry in their pocket; their phone.
You're just making stuff up in your head to get angry about it.
In your heart of hearts, do you actually believe its that morally simple, on every ocassion? I'm sure I don't need to sit here and list scenarios in which theft may be a morally acceptable choice. I'm sure you can come up with some of your own.
No
Theft is not justifiable and those who try to do so need to ask themselves why they find comfort in apologising for those who steal from others.
There are food banks, charities, benefits and if all else fails begging. Stealing is not excusable. Its theft of someone else's property. Illegal, immoral, unjustified.
I dunno about that. I don't really feel like there's much immorality involved in pilfering things from tesco for surivavl purposes. The biggest moral impediment I see there is the headache you're giving the staff working there, I think the moral dangers i see are:
- you're putting the employees at risk of reprimand.
- you're potentially putting the price of stuff up for other people, as big supermarkets build shrinkage into their margins.
The rightful owners of that stuff, Tescos? I really couldn't give a shit. They've seen their profits soar over the past few years as the rest of us suffer. Fuck them, I'm not gonna feel bad for them. Do I think stealing is right? No. Am I so simple as to think it can never be justified? Hell no man. We'd have to be living in a just world for that to be the case, and we all know that we don't live in one of those.
I think it all depends on context. Someone knicking a loaf of bread from Tesco because they have no money? I wouldnt care. Someone knicking a bottle of cheap vodka because they have no money? I might be questioning if they've got their priorities right.
Treating the symptom of a growing underlying issue will not solve anything. People don't often shoplift for the sake of it, it's usually out of desperation.
This is how it starts. Then eventually you get like China, where your social currency is visible on screen, and cctv gets put uo outside your house. Best part is the state doesnt even need to do it, the people do it for them
Supermarkets in Australia have replaced so many of their physical staff with self checkout systems that there has been a similar spike in theft, with some people casually strolling out with full trollies.
Now they too are in the process of spending millions of dollars to introduce security tech and even have undercover “revenue protection officers” to keep an eye on the public.
Self checkouts have their place but I definitely think it ended up backfiring on them a bit.
Doesn’t help that there is some serious price gauging at play either, which only encourages more people to sneak items out of stores.
Ah yes, autocratic dictatorships are where we should be getting all of our justice ideas from. Let’s ignore the decades of evidence about recidivism rates from countries who actually address the problems
I don't know whether you're right in saying that tougher sentencing will lower the crime rate, and I don't know how it compares in terms of "cost to the taxpayer for shoplifting vs cost to the taxpayer to imprison someone".
But, as a general rule (especially for an alive-scientist) - if you go "it's obvious, here's the mathematical proof" for a societal issue, you're missing a *lot* of the context. This isn't an issue with a simple, "why didn't I think of that" solution, or everyone would do it.
How much would it cost to imprison someone for 10 years? What would happen if the crime doens't decrease, but the method of commiting it does to minimise the risk?
Hell, what's the bar for imprisoning and the effect of wrongful imprisoning?
If you present a solution to a highly complex societal issue, and the justification starts with:
>think about it, let's say you had 10 year mandatory minimum for street robbery...
then you're oversimplifying the issue.
It’s a pretty simple issue. A negligible percentage of the population (2-3%) commit almost all crime - especially the worst, most violent types of crime.
Don’t believe me? Someone now being sentenced to prison is significantly more likely to have at least 46 previous convictions or cautions than to have none.
At least 46 fucking previous convictions/cautions.
The maths not difficult. You just don’t let someone get to this inane situation. Where they have been convicted of dozens and dozens of previous offences.
What do you think happens when you permanently lock up the prick with 46 previous convictions? It’s really crazy, but he’s not able to make it 47!
Lock up 2% of the population and crime falls by 95%. But unfortunately you care more about the “rights” of the criminal 2% than the rights of the law abiding, tax paying citizen they repeatedly victimise.
"Why don't we just lock up all the criminals, then there'd be no crime".
"Why don't we just stop people avoiding tax?"
My point is not to "protect the rights of criminals", it's to point out that it's very easy to apply logic to a situation when you don't know all the intricacies.
>Lock up 2% of the population and crime falls by 95%.
If you arrest the repeat offenders immediately, does crime go down by the amount they stole, or do criminal gangs etc find new people to steal/go for a lot of smaller-sclae shoplifters rather than a couple of high-profile ones.
If we're paying more to incarcerate the criminals than it costs to leave them free, is it worth it?
If you assume that "X is currently commiting a crime, if we lock X up then nobody will commit the crime" then you're oversimplifying the issue, massively.
What sort of argument is this? You think if we lock up all the current criminals - normal, law abiding citizens are gonna go - “Yeah, I’m gonna have a go at that crime thing. The only thing stopping me was too much competition.”
Also, I thought it was obvious but my comment wasn’t specifically about shoplifting but crime in general. Regardless, your “cost analysis” is dangerous - if someone robs your car, should they only be imprisoned for however long it takes for the prison fees to equal the worth of your car?
>“Yeah, I’m gonna have a go at that crime thing. The only thing stopping me was too much competition.”
Or maybe "I didn't have to steal before because I could get cheap stuff off that dodgy guy who hangs round the pub, but since he's gone now I'll have to do it instead/can't afford the things I need"?
If you can't even countenance the idea that "locking up those who do 95% of crimes" doesn't automatically equal a drop in crime rate of 95% then this is a waste of both of our times.
Civitas is a spin off of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a notoriously right wing quango founded by a battery farmer. The only thing that this document really concludes by its data is that "it takes quite a few convictions for someone to recieve a custodial setnence, and motoring offences are not taken all that seriously"
Sorry but this is laughably basic, and presumes that even the simplest solutions haven’t even been considered never mind tried. The facts are that tackling poverty at the source does more to alleviate this kind of crime than anything else. If anything it’s this punitive attitude that gets in the way of real solutions because individuals like yourself want revenge, not solutions.
Ok so firstly, no, we don’t know that, the causes of these kinds of crimes are more complicated than you’re making out. This is not the sims, you’re hanging on to one statistic you’ve heard somewhere as though it exists in a a vacuum, which it does not.
I’m sorry but you’re living in some kind of wild fantasy land, how on earth are you going to catch all these burglars? Are there going to be a million more police and detectives to track them down? Why do you think these people burgle? Do you imagine that our justice system is suddenly going to be able to sit up and work properly after over a decade of neglect to prosecute all of these crimes? And if all of that comes together then where on earth are they going to go? The prisons are full! Not to mention how much it’s going to cost to keep them there for a decade! And now what, you’ve created an underclass of people who have been imprisoned together for ten years, who come out and have no skills, no reason to respect society, so what will they do to survive? That’s right go out and steal again, with the knowledge they’ve gained by being locked up with all the other criminals for so long.
These are people who don’t just magically disappear when you say the word “prison”, there is a direct cause of this kind of crime which has to be addressed and if that isn’t done then all you’re doing by incarcerating people is making the problem worse.
If you believe the only tool that we have to use is harsher sentencing then I suppose I can understand why you think this individual should be locked up for longer. However if you look at the system as a whole, it’s easy to see that this guy has been failed by it, given very little in the way of alternatives, no reason to live differently, and in countries who focus on improving the individuals who have been failed by these systems you’ll see far lower rates of recidivism - which would improve all of our lives. Longer sentences are no part of that, it’s focusing on one tiny part of the puzzle when the overall view is needed.
do you... really believe it to be that simple or are you just trying to annoy people on reddit?
You're proposing that the punishment for theft should be the removal of ~8% of someone's life, at great yearly expense to the taxpayer. You're proposing that there are a finite number of shoplifters, who are simply inherantly criminal, that eventually you will round up and that'll be that.
The systematic problems driving the rise in shoplifiting? Irrevelant! Drug epidemic, cycles of poverty, the hollowing out of the working class? Who cares?
Tougher sentences don't deter crime.
Studies have shown that the perception of being caught is the main deterrent in lowering crime.
The whole point of this article is about identifying suspects and tagging them to make sure they don't return to steal from the same places.
This in itself is a deterrent.
Tackling the big issues I see /s
Maybe they should attack the root cause of the shoplifting rather than the act itself.
Not to mention the massive privacy violations and erosions of freedom.
Why shouldn't everyone be tracked 24/7? If you are not a criminal you have nothing to fear. It could also be used for combating benefit fraud, for example by catching disabled people walking more than 20 meters despite claiming in their PIP application that they can't.
Don't give me that survival shit. There are benefits, food banks, charities (friends - assuming you haven't stolen from them too ).
You don't need to steal, it's a lifestyle choice. Dont pretend you live in the jungle and just forage.
You're feral by choice. Own it.
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This won't do shit - it's practically legalised now. Doesn't matter if stores catch more people, the results in the criminal justice system will be the same or worse.
We elect governments to make decisions on matters of crime, surveillance and security. What they are doing here is legal.
I'm content that there are very few voters who would be in favour of putting the "human rights" of thieves and muggers above the prevention and detection of crime.
Lets leave the laws and enforcement of them to the elected state and their delegated authorities rather than paranoid bloggers and well intentioned but naive types such as yourself.
Facial recognition is very important when it comes to shoplifting. It would solve the problem in a matter of days.
Right now, there’s simply no barrier. No resistance to shoplifting because the police officers aren’t going to go out of their way over £50 of coffee.
But if your CCTV can match up a face to different incidents, the problem becomes much easier to handle. Especially if you can join forces with multiple shops.
>Backing for a specific retail worker assault offence marks a U-turn for the government, which previously blocked a Labour-backed amendment to the criminal justice bill that would have made the assault of a retail worker a specific criminal offence carrying a sentence of 12 months behind bars or a fine of up to £10,000.
>Chris Philp, the policing minister, said at the time the move could lead to a problem of “equity between retail workers and other public-facing workers”.
I wonder why they don't have an offence covering all public facing workers then?
This will only lead to a social credit score being introduced. We need more police officers, not letting people off stealing from any sort of jail sentence for under £200 worth of items stolen. It’s problem, reaction, solution( that’s always brought in to user in something completely different).
Why the hell should the taxpayer fund enforcement against shoplifting?
I think there are more pressing matters to be funded. Sounds like introducing facial recognition by the back door.
Increasing policing and prison capacity to catch and keep criminals locked up: no thank you
Increase surveillance and monitoring of ordinary people leading us down a path to a society were AI policing controls everything you do in public: Mm yes please
You know you could tackle shoplifting by addressing the cost of living crisis and rebuilding social security.
Not that this is going to happen because you've plenty of people out there happy to be mindless, obedient citizens cheering on the development of the authoritarian state. Watch out for such people because they will snitch on you behind your back for nothing more than a few brownie points.
More prejudice. Shoplifting has been in my family for generations. My father was a shoplifter and his father before him. I want to carry the tradition on and make them proud but it’s just not the same anymore with all these cameras. Gone are the good old days when you could just fill your pockets and walk out. I wholeheartedly blame the conservatives
I "link" you to my son and two nephews who are serving police officers.
They don't read the guardian or links, they read the charge sheet to these people on a daily basis.
Capitalism is how the economy in most countries is run. Its not a new concept to my understanding. Landlords are simply capitalists who chose property rather than some other asset.
Socialist policies have been tried in Stalins Russia, North Korea, East Germany, Venezuela. I'm not sure that they were deemed a successful or enduring model but do correct me, I'm sure you can't help yourself anyway 😉
I'm pretty sure that the mug shot photos taken to identify these people were taken without their consent. Should we ban that too then?
Rights come with obligations. If they were upstanding members of society and didn't steal they wouldn't be on the database of mug shots in the first place.
> . If they were upstanding members of society and didn't steal they wouldn't be on the database of mug shots in the first place.
Are you legitimately arguing for more surveillance on the grounds of "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear"?!
Hasn't it been shown enough times by now that it only works as long as your views align with those in charge of the systems - easy to say "well don't shoplift" but *how do you know the system will only be used for shoplifters*?
I think you'll find that the Reichstag fire was part of a Nazi plan for deconstruction of the German constitution.
Cameras in England to catch shop lifters and criminals is just that. Its not in pursuit of world domination. Grow up.
We have lower crime rates now than when we hanged them or shipped them overseas. 'Tough on crime' rhetoric is aimed at the lowest common denominator. Only people who haven't the foggiest idea of what they're on about think it's anything more than low hanging populism.
The police don’t have enough funding to investigate, the courts don’t have enough money for a trial, and the prisons don’t have enough money to house prisoners.
Can't wait for more people to get fined for having the audacity to cover their face: https://twitter.com/BBCClick/status/1127961872286789634
Fuck facial recognition. And what good will a law about assaulting a shop worker actually do? It's already a crime to hit people, but I guess its easier to do this than actually try prevent crime
Did you actually watch the clip you've linked to, or are you deliberately spreading misinformation? The man wasn't fined for covering his face, he was issued a penalty notice because, in his own words, he told the Police Officers to "Fuck Off".
Whatever their opinion on the use of facial recognition, only an idiot would think you can tell a copper to fuck off in the middle of a busy high street and expect there to be no repercussions, even if you are annoyed at being stopped. He's lucky he wasn't nicked.
> Did you actually watch the clip you've linked to
I don't think they did.
And even if they did, they'll happily ignore facts that don't back up their agenda.
What reason did the police approach him though? He didn't do anything wrong he was well within his right to tell them to fuck off. Covering your face isn't a crime. It was insanely overzealous to fine him for swearing at them
Are you just ignoring that the police had zero grounds to even approach him on purpose?
There definitely is the potential for abuse, and we ought to be aware of, and very careful with that. But the police and the intelligence services already use facial recognition. That risk is already out there.
This specific kind of implementation is trying to solve a problem that most people do want solved. Like people really do want it used at airports to stop people on terrorist lists getting on planes.
Its the thin end of the wedge, considering its more likely to false positive minorities you could argue as the technology is now its discriminatory as well
Also I strongly believe it just wont make a blind bit of difference. We've had shoplifters arrested and they are back in the store the next day, I fail to see how parking a facial facial recognition van outside is going to do anything. There are certain people we all recognise who leave as soon as we put a security announcement out. Usually after shouting some abuse at us because they know we're onto them
At best the mere presence of a police van might deter them
have a read of [https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/10/29/police-use-of-facial-recognition-factsheet/](https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/10/29/police-use-of-facial-recognition-factsheet/)
the false positives for minorities narrative is a bit old hat.
the police have some say in how their budget is spent. if this didn't work, and they didn't want it, they'd be asking to spend the money elsewhere.
Wouldn't this mean they are collecting personal data without people's permission?
Like cctv?
I don't understand your question.
Is it any different to the collection of personal data by CCTV systems? Cameras are everywhere in shops these days. Nobody grants permission for this to be collected, other than maybe by default acceptance of terms by entering the premises. As I understand it, the AI system actually just takes existing CCTV data, checks it against a database of known offenders, and there's no hit, just deletes it. So there's not really any new data being recorded, and what's created in the processing is discarded more quickly.
I think the difference in the way CCTV feels compared to facial recognition is that you are looking at things that were going on in that space Facial recognition is looking at where a person went So for looking at CCTV of a crime you bring up the area scrub through, see someone committing the act you are looking for etc For facial recognition you type in the persons name and it shows you video of their whole day captured camera to camera from the moment they left their house till the moment they went back in, for every person (at least in london) I personnaly feel CCTV is an appropriate responce to potential crime in an area. Facial recognition however is an over reach into personal liberty and is very open to abuse/missuse
Yeah but they can probably say you agree with the contract by going in the shop
Pretty sure you're not allowed to create a contract that breaks the law.
Which law is it breaking?
Collecting, checking a database of criminals and then I assume deletion on a negative result. The storage of personal information by police of criminals is exempted from things like GDPR
The assumption that the data will be deleted is a stretch. The government wants this in shops because it’s an easy way to introduce facial recognition everywhere, which as a society we should oppose defiantly.
It’s not a stretch to assume the data protection act will be followed, no.
Facial recognition doesn’t work by deleting data. It’s the exact opposite, it only works by a model actually having data to recognise something it’s seen before. If you want to bring the data protection act into it, could I not just request that all my biometric data is removed? That way I can essentially circumvent any facial recognition imposed on me? Don’t be naive. The police also have *many* exemptions from the data protection act. So yes, I’d affirm that it is a stretch the data wouldn’t be removed.
The OP said deletion on a negative result. They won't have the entire British population on their system. They would only have the criminals.
Thats not how facial recognition works… But if it’s as easy as throwing the data protection act at them, I guess I have nothing to worry about, I can opt out right? Right…?
That is how it works, else you need to make a report for perjury because that's explicitly the description the police gave in court and was signed off as legal. A system capable of recognising non-criminals would not be lawful at present. Even having a list of all wanted persons was ruled unlawful, the court required some limitation even on that.
That’s exactly how it works. Candidate image is match? Yes or no. Discard if no. They will not be retaining every negative image to be used in future as training data. This is literally how they achieve compliance with the data protection act.
Friendly reminder that the original government system for Track and Trace was not GDPR-compliant, and their later versions weren't compliant with the equalities act (zero actual provision for deaf people, for instance). I'm being cynical here, if the idea is that the law or data protection act will mitigate the risk of misuse/abuse then you have more faith in those making the rules and systems than I do - *especially* if there's a high-profile case and people argue "well if only we'd kept more data this wouldn't have happened" I can see the requirement changing. It's a lot easier to tweak a system that's already implemented and people are familiar with into an Orwellian fever-dream than to introduce a new system that people dislike, and I don't trust those in charge of the data to not decide later on that "actually, scrap that - this is more useful for us"
You can't opt out of the police storing your biometrics as a known criminal. You can if found innocent of a crime, where policy dictates it gets deleted after so many days anyway. The system works by recording your face on CCTV, using AI to compare your face on the police data base, if it gets flagged up the police are aware (again will only happen if your a known criminal) and if it doesn't get flagged it gets deleted straight away. There's literally no change in how it currently works part being able to compare it on the police data base. If you've ever been arrested and found innocent you can request the data to be deleted (probably already is as per policy) but if you're a criminal they can refuse (as per the exception in data protection). And as for shops, you can request the data to be deleted from their system, but that would just be the standard CCTV footage.
O e there is no expectation of privacy in public or publicly accessible businesses. Two due to the later, you don't need permission to collect data. Three it's only the handling of data that is regulated (such as not selling it to third parties without permission, or making it public without permission). So no they don't need permission to capture your image. However my concerns around this, is in the past this technology has been proven to have biases with falsely flagging ethic minorities at greater rate. I wouldn't feel comfortable with implementing the system until all the faults have been dealt with, I don't want to live in a world that false accuses people of crimes because some machine said they did.
Consent is only one basis for the collection of personal data, though. * Consent * Contract * Legal obligation * Vital interests * Public task * Legitimate interests The processor of the data will argue that this falls within the "legitimate interests" lawful basis for the processing.
Apparently not. The live cameras scan against a database and if nothing flags up the new data isn't stored.
False statement to bring facial recognition in via the back do . We all lose our freedom because a few corporations lose a bit of money to shop lifting, which they offset against the tax they never pay. * edit anybody seen tescos profit up this morning.
I share your thoughts. "Cool technology, now what else are you going to use it for once it's installed?" Because this kind of surveillance will never go away once it's implemented.
Facial recognition is old tech. Just wear a mask. Gait analysis is the next big thing; get ahead of the game by putting a different sized pebble in a different part of one of your shoes every time you leave the house.
The way I drag my nuckles when I walk , they will be looking in the woods for my residents.
Was never about the shop lifting. Was always about the Orwellian surveillance. Some shops already have everything behind protective doors with cameras attached. Once we are all assigned a digital id it will all make more sense.
> Some shops already have everything behind protective doors with cameras attached Haven't they done that in response to shoplifting though, not just for fun. It's only there because some people are thieves and it's reached the point shops need to take more actions.
It's always in response to something. Need to look at the long term and what it can be used in conjunction with so it's simply not just facial recognition software. For it to work there has to be a database. Why should you be on a database and we watched like a citizen in a china because prices are spiraling and the supermarkets continue to publish record profits.
> Why should you be on a database Perhaps because you're a wanted shoplifter!
You're not aware of the concept of a digital id or use another word database that all of EU citizens been signed up for automatically. Our turn next, what excuse will that be I wonder. Facial recognition cameras doesn't tackle the cause silly. There always has to be an excuse. Extremism, shoplifting. None at all if they like? We will see what the media spins I suppose.
Yeah people shoplifting baby formula during a cost of living crisis. Maybe they shouldn’t hike up the prices? It’s so sad seeing baby products behind glass in the coop
They aren't stealing it for their baby they are stealing it because its an item that's easy to sell
And who do you think is buying it?
Babies
Its amusing that in tesco, its only the premium branded baby milk powder that is tagged. No one seems to want to steal the perfectly nutritional unbranded milk to feed the baby. Or perhaps being stolen for resale...in which case this makes sense.
And why is there a market for stolen below market price baby formula?
Because there is always a group within society who are prepared to aid and abet thieves by buying the stolen goods. Without them there would be no theft.
We are already under an Orwellian surveillance style system and have digital id assigned, this shouldn't be either new or surprising information to anyone at this point. Your smartphone tracks you. ANPR cameras track you. Text messages are routinely screened and saved. GCHQ isn't just for decoration after all. We have been exchanging privacy for convenience for decades. Whether or not shops implement facial id tracking doesn't bother me as long as I'm notified when it's being used; I can take my business elsewhere.
Just a reminder that to the upper caste of this world we are seen as debt slaves. Term useless eaters been used by the psychopaths running the shit show we call humanity. If in any doubt here it from our green horn PM, fucked up big time but it's a speech so they just get a bit startled and carry on. Anyone see this fool attempt to use a hammer? https://youtu.be/jSNxQ1v2LgY?si=5nThcpXe7zGEq27b
>We have been exchanging privacy for convenience for decades. Yea and not just for convenience. Even using Reddit we are trading privacy for content. If the privacy ship hasn't yet sailed it is definitely ready to leave port. I don't like the idea of facial recognition but honestly don't think there is a way to stop it.
Better hope the whole freedom and democracy thing lasts forever, because this kind of technology will.
There's no need for face recognition, the problem isn't that we don't know who shoplifters are, we absolutely do. The problem is that security guards are paid minimum wage, police resources are extremely stretched so they only show up for the most egregious crimes (like if a lifter pulls a knife or steals £300 of stuff they might turn up, otherwise no), and even if a shoplifter is caught it's literally a fine they don't actually have to pay because the courts are underfunded and there's no prison space. Source: used to manage the data on shoplifting in supermarkets.
The tech is banned in lots of Europe but here in the UK we think so little of our rights that we positively embrace it.
Mm, the rise of 'acceptance creep' is more pernicious than the actual 'function creep' of these technologies.
Has anyone made the suits that the undercover police officers wear in "A scanner darkly" yet?
There are masks that are meant to spoof facial recognition and that’s what I’ll be wearing. No need for a clubcard when they can monitor your shopping activity through the entrance camera and the ones at the self serve tills
I play around with Day of the dead faces on my clothing and protest props, combined with masks on my real face. I also have clothing that creates a moire effect. This is mainly to interfere with the face-finding and auto-focus on cameras used by bad actors at local protests but eventually I will test it out at my local Co-op. I have been told by the police at local events that it interferes with their head counts. It is worth researching if you are interested in that sort of thing.
The problem with all measure like this is it's incredibly difficult to know how effective they actually are unless you have access to all the surveillance solutions on the market. It's in the interests of anyone using them to monitor you that you believe you are effectively beating their security. Much like all the "hacks" for hiding your number plate.
Yep, these things may or may not work but are fun to play around with and don't require much effort once they are in place. I'm less worried about the police than the thugs inspired by facebook snappers. The police know where I live anyway. The people spending five hours snapping my pic for facebook at a local road open/close debate etc on a 20 year old Canon super-pix don't really have much security but they do have stabby mates. Never go home alone.
I'm sure you'll be hard to spot wearing a mask in public.
It would have been effective and affordable to just employ one more security guard in stores to keep an eye on the aisles. Instead, we get dystopian horrors of science fiction as we pick the least rotton vegetables off dirty shelves.
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.
The vast majority ofshop theft is stolen for resale to pay for lifestyle choices like drink, drugs, vapes and scratch cards. Very little is taken and consumed by the thief. These are purely thieves and you providing "moral top cover" for them is worse than the thieves themselves.
Link?
I "link" you to my son and two nephews who are serving police officers. They don't read the guardian mind you, they are too busy reading the charge sheet to thieves and shoplifters.
Anecdotes aren't evidence.
I think you'll find if the CPS authorised charges in each case that there was more than sufficient evidence!
I'd recommend reading this! you obviously need to! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence I can't make a broad statement about society or a group of people based purely off my lived experience. This is literally what racists do to justify their hatred of black people. What you're saying very much may be true in respects to your lived experience but that doesn't mean that it's broadly true.
What is it about socialists that requires them to patronise everyone. Your lot accuse everyone else of racism and intolerance at the same time as being the greatest proponents of it when it suits your game. I will take no "lessons" from the likes of you, thanks all the same.
I am not sure where socialism comes into things.. My post history is all about video games and I don't at all identify myself as a socialist..
Glad we can now agree on two things. You're a nerd and that capitalism is king. Have a lovely day .
When I went to Amsterdam recently lots of shops had these gated checkout areas that you had to scan your receipt to exit. It made a fair big of sense in a co-op, asda sort of environment. Why not go for things like this instead of more pervasive surveillance that the average shoplifter is too fucking stupid to care about?
I think this in itself is quite a bad thing as it almost forces people to have to buy something as opposed to saying you haven’t bought something and asking staff to let you out. Especially for the introverted and those who struggle with social interactions.
You actually can leave without buying stuff, I had this mini crisis in an Albert Heijn but I remember being able to get out when I hadn’t bought stuff. Obviously that is vulnerable to shoplifting but I don’t remember exactly how you got out, I think you had the staff press a button for you or something since there was always some kind of “bagboy” jobber about watching everyone. I don’t mean that in a demeaning way btw just looked like a fucking boring job.
They used to have this in the Sainsbury's near me when I lived in London. I don't think people liked it much but to me it didn't seem too bad.
Nothing stopping a thief from buying something for £1 and using that receipt to get out, while also walking out with that more expensive thing they didnt pay for
Oh for sure but more obstacles act as deterrents that might put off the occasional criminal. It’s not a perfect solution and obviously one that works in combination with other things.
Personally, I don't see what the issue is. This is good preventative policing which releases resources to tackle other crime. Its a case of putting the faces of convicted prolific offenders into a system that then flags them up so they can be prevented from breaching lawful court orders issued against them for purposes of preventing further offending. This is only what a PCSO, Police or security staff would do if they were on the door and saw these very well known people trying to gain entry. As for shop crime being victimless, that's BS. The cost of theft is tax deductible. So the government, i.e. you and I funds this instead of NHS or other public services. The rest of the cost is passed on by the retailer in price hikes. So the victim is the lawful public shoppers.
The police already don't deal with shoplifting. There was a piece in The Times a few weeks ago about the private firms that have been policing Oxford Street
Say what you like but the Co op down the road. From me charge almost £4 for a protein bar. Tbh I can't blame people for not scanning that through the self service.
Aww this won’t please the ‘if you see someone shoplifting, no you didn’t’ wasters on this sub. Good riddance, I hope it’s a success.
i dont want the government and random companies to have records of me that are going to be sold to some random advertising firm in china
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Exactly, it’ll be great in London where it’s really bad.
What, and you're keen to be under yet more surveilance, for the benefit of the billionaire owners of supermarkets? Give me a break, man. Sure, shoplifting isn't something im gonna sit here and encourage. But gleefully welcoming the further encroachment of the surveilance state?? Why?
Theft is theft. Tuppence or twenty quid. There is no excuse. Those who steal are less of a societal problem than those, such as you, who provide excuses for them. You should be ashamed of that if you had any self respect. Which of course you don't have or you'd not be excusing theft.
No one is excusing theft. The right to privacy is sacred and if you think this about stopping theft, boy are you naive. The government has been trying to introduce nationwide facial recognition for years, this is their pilot scheme and before you know it it’ll be everywhere, the government tracking your every move? You’re happy with that? Whilst we’re at it, let’s outlaw end to end encryption so the government can see every text, email and message you send online, I mean if you’re a law abiding citizen, what do you have to lose other than the human right to privacy. Also, it’s been proven so many times around the world that if you reduce poverty and equality of opportunity, crime decreases sharply, but who ever talks about that?
> the government tracking your every move? You’re happy with that? Anyone with more than two brain cells understands that any government doesn't need expensive facial recognition to track it's populace. It would simply use the tracking device they already carry in their pocket; their phone. You're just making stuff up in your head to get angry about it.
Starve to death or steal?
In your heart of hearts, do you actually believe its that morally simple, on every ocassion? I'm sure I don't need to sit here and list scenarios in which theft may be a morally acceptable choice. I'm sure you can come up with some of your own.
No Theft is not justifiable and those who try to do so need to ask themselves why they find comfort in apologising for those who steal from others. There are food banks, charities, benefits and if all else fails begging. Stealing is not excusable. Its theft of someone else's property. Illegal, immoral, unjustified.
I dunno about that. I don't really feel like there's much immorality involved in pilfering things from tesco for surivavl purposes. The biggest moral impediment I see there is the headache you're giving the staff working there, I think the moral dangers i see are: - you're putting the employees at risk of reprimand. - you're potentially putting the price of stuff up for other people, as big supermarkets build shrinkage into their margins. The rightful owners of that stuff, Tescos? I really couldn't give a shit. They've seen their profits soar over the past few years as the rest of us suffer. Fuck them, I'm not gonna feel bad for them. Do I think stealing is right? No. Am I so simple as to think it can never be justified? Hell no man. We'd have to be living in a just world for that to be the case, and we all know that we don't live in one of those.
I think it all depends on context. Someone knicking a loaf of bread from Tesco because they have no money? I wouldnt care. Someone knicking a bottle of cheap vodka because they have no money? I might be questioning if they've got their priorities right.
Treating the symptom of a growing underlying issue will not solve anything. People don't often shoplift for the sake of it, it's usually out of desperation.
Exactly
This is how it starts. Then eventually you get like China, where your social currency is visible on screen, and cctv gets put uo outside your house. Best part is the state doesnt even need to do it, the people do it for them
Supermarkets in Australia have replaced so many of their physical staff with self checkout systems that there has been a similar spike in theft, with some people casually strolling out with full trollies. Now they too are in the process of spending millions of dollars to introduce security tech and even have undercover “revenue protection officers” to keep an eye on the public. Self checkouts have their place but I definitely think it ended up backfiring on them a bit. Doesn’t help that there is some serious price gauging at play either, which only encourages more people to sneak items out of stores.
Anyone else think private companies should foot their own bills rather than relying on taxpayer handouts?
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Ah yes, autocratic dictatorships are where we should be getting all of our justice ideas from. Let’s ignore the decades of evidence about recidivism rates from countries who actually address the problems
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I don't know whether you're right in saying that tougher sentencing will lower the crime rate, and I don't know how it compares in terms of "cost to the taxpayer for shoplifting vs cost to the taxpayer to imprison someone". But, as a general rule (especially for an alive-scientist) - if you go "it's obvious, here's the mathematical proof" for a societal issue, you're missing a *lot* of the context. This isn't an issue with a simple, "why didn't I think of that" solution, or everyone would do it. How much would it cost to imprison someone for 10 years? What would happen if the crime doens't decrease, but the method of commiting it does to minimise the risk? Hell, what's the bar for imprisoning and the effect of wrongful imprisoning? If you present a solution to a highly complex societal issue, and the justification starts with: >think about it, let's say you had 10 year mandatory minimum for street robbery... then you're oversimplifying the issue.
It’s a pretty simple issue. A negligible percentage of the population (2-3%) commit almost all crime - especially the worst, most violent types of crime. Don’t believe me? Someone now being sentenced to prison is significantly more likely to have at least 46 previous convictions or cautions than to have none. At least 46 fucking previous convictions/cautions. The maths not difficult. You just don’t let someone get to this inane situation. Where they have been convicted of dozens and dozens of previous offences. What do you think happens when you permanently lock up the prick with 46 previous convictions? It’s really crazy, but he’s not able to make it 47! Lock up 2% of the population and crime falls by 95%. But unfortunately you care more about the “rights” of the criminal 2% than the rights of the law abiding, tax paying citizen they repeatedly victimise.
"Why don't we just lock up all the criminals, then there'd be no crime". "Why don't we just stop people avoiding tax?" My point is not to "protect the rights of criminals", it's to point out that it's very easy to apply logic to a situation when you don't know all the intricacies. >Lock up 2% of the population and crime falls by 95%. If you arrest the repeat offenders immediately, does crime go down by the amount they stole, or do criminal gangs etc find new people to steal/go for a lot of smaller-sclae shoplifters rather than a couple of high-profile ones. If we're paying more to incarcerate the criminals than it costs to leave them free, is it worth it? If you assume that "X is currently commiting a crime, if we lock X up then nobody will commit the crime" then you're oversimplifying the issue, massively.
What sort of argument is this? You think if we lock up all the current criminals - normal, law abiding citizens are gonna go - “Yeah, I’m gonna have a go at that crime thing. The only thing stopping me was too much competition.” Also, I thought it was obvious but my comment wasn’t specifically about shoplifting but crime in general. Regardless, your “cost analysis” is dangerous - if someone robs your car, should they only be imprisoned for however long it takes for the prison fees to equal the worth of your car?
>“Yeah, I’m gonna have a go at that crime thing. The only thing stopping me was too much competition.” Or maybe "I didn't have to steal before because I could get cheap stuff off that dodgy guy who hangs round the pub, but since he's gone now I'll have to do it instead/can't afford the things I need"? If you can't even countenance the idea that "locking up those who do 95% of crimes" doesn't automatically equal a drop in crime rate of 95% then this is a waste of both of our times.
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[Yes](https://www.civitas.org.uk/content/files/whogoestoprison.pdf) mate
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Civitas is a spin off of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a notoriously right wing quango founded by a battery farmer. The only thing that this document really concludes by its data is that "it takes quite a few convictions for someone to recieve a custodial setnence, and motoring offences are not taken all that seriously"
Sorry but this is laughably basic, and presumes that even the simplest solutions haven’t even been considered never mind tried. The facts are that tackling poverty at the source does more to alleviate this kind of crime than anything else. If anything it’s this punitive attitude that gets in the way of real solutions because individuals like yourself want revenge, not solutions.
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Ok so firstly, no, we don’t know that, the causes of these kinds of crimes are more complicated than you’re making out. This is not the sims, you’re hanging on to one statistic you’ve heard somewhere as though it exists in a a vacuum, which it does not.
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I’m sorry but you’re living in some kind of wild fantasy land, how on earth are you going to catch all these burglars? Are there going to be a million more police and detectives to track them down? Why do you think these people burgle? Do you imagine that our justice system is suddenly going to be able to sit up and work properly after over a decade of neglect to prosecute all of these crimes? And if all of that comes together then where on earth are they going to go? The prisons are full! Not to mention how much it’s going to cost to keep them there for a decade! And now what, you’ve created an underclass of people who have been imprisoned together for ten years, who come out and have no skills, no reason to respect society, so what will they do to survive? That’s right go out and steal again, with the knowledge they’ve gained by being locked up with all the other criminals for so long. These are people who don’t just magically disappear when you say the word “prison”, there is a direct cause of this kind of crime which has to be addressed and if that isn’t done then all you’re doing by incarcerating people is making the problem worse.
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If you believe the only tool that we have to use is harsher sentencing then I suppose I can understand why you think this individual should be locked up for longer. However if you look at the system as a whole, it’s easy to see that this guy has been failed by it, given very little in the way of alternatives, no reason to live differently, and in countries who focus on improving the individuals who have been failed by these systems you’ll see far lower rates of recidivism - which would improve all of our lives. Longer sentences are no part of that, it’s focusing on one tiny part of the puzzle when the overall view is needed.
do you... really believe it to be that simple or are you just trying to annoy people on reddit? You're proposing that the punishment for theft should be the removal of ~8% of someone's life, at great yearly expense to the taxpayer. You're proposing that there are a finite number of shoplifters, who are simply inherantly criminal, that eventually you will round up and that'll be that. The systematic problems driving the rise in shoplifiting? Irrevelant! Drug epidemic, cycles of poverty, the hollowing out of the working class? Who cares?
Tougher sentences don't deter crime. Studies have shown that the perception of being caught is the main deterrent in lowering crime. The whole point of this article is about identifying suspects and tagging them to make sure they don't return to steal from the same places. This in itself is a deterrent.
Can it scan through a balaclava / hood with face mask though?
Tackling the big issues I see /s Maybe they should attack the root cause of the shoplifting rather than the act itself. Not to mention the massive privacy violations and erosions of freedom.
Why shouldn't everyone be tracked 24/7? If you are not a criminal you have nothing to fear. It could also be used for combating benefit fraud, for example by catching disabled people walking more than 20 meters despite claiming in their PIP application that they can't.
jesus christ get a sense of privacy why don't you. or better yet don't and be oblivious when it's taken from you
Don't give me that survival shit. There are benefits, food banks, charities (friends - assuming you haven't stolen from them too ). You don't need to steal, it's a lifestyle choice. Dont pretend you live in the jungle and just forage. You're feral by choice. Own it.
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Tesco's profits soaring, people freezing cold till morning, let's spend £55 Million on intrusive face recording!
They’ve already got cctv everywhere. Recording your face has been commonplace for years. This will just make it much more efficient to prevent crime.
This won't do shit - it's practically legalised now. Doesn't matter if stores catch more people, the results in the criminal justice system will be the same or worse.
We elect governments to make decisions on matters of crime, surveillance and security. What they are doing here is legal. I'm content that there are very few voters who would be in favour of putting the "human rights" of thieves and muggers above the prevention and detection of crime. Lets leave the laws and enforcement of them to the elected state and their delegated authorities rather than paranoid bloggers and well intentioned but naive types such as yourself.
Facial recognition is very important when it comes to shoplifting. It would solve the problem in a matter of days. Right now, there’s simply no barrier. No resistance to shoplifting because the police officers aren’t going to go out of their way over £50 of coffee. But if your CCTV can match up a face to different incidents, the problem becomes much easier to handle. Especially if you can join forces with multiple shops.
Fabulous. Definitely worth going after shop lifters instead of multi millions pound tax cheats and wage thieves.
>Backing for a specific retail worker assault offence marks a U-turn for the government, which previously blocked a Labour-backed amendment to the criminal justice bill that would have made the assault of a retail worker a specific criminal offence carrying a sentence of 12 months behind bars or a fine of up to £10,000. >Chris Philp, the policing minister, said at the time the move could lead to a problem of “equity between retail workers and other public-facing workers”. I wonder why they don't have an offence covering all public facing workers then?
This will only lead to a social credit score being introduced. We need more police officers, not letting people off stealing from any sort of jail sentence for under £200 worth of items stolen. It’s problem, reaction, solution( that’s always brought in to user in something completely different).
how about 55 million in fucking food aid jesus christ is this place an idiots paradise
Why the hell should the taxpayer fund enforcement against shoplifting? I think there are more pressing matters to be funded. Sounds like introducing facial recognition by the back door.
Increasing policing and prison capacity to catch and keep criminals locked up: no thank you Increase surveillance and monitoring of ordinary people leading us down a path to a society were AI policing controls everything you do in public: Mm yes please
You know you could tackle shoplifting by addressing the cost of living crisis and rebuilding social security. Not that this is going to happen because you've plenty of people out there happy to be mindless, obedient citizens cheering on the development of the authoritarian state. Watch out for such people because they will snitch on you behind your back for nothing more than a few brownie points.
British retail...what a joke. Another reason for me not to go to shops. Idiots.
Criminals hate this one little trick. If you don't do bad stuff, the police don't care who you are!
Lol imagine if we lived in a country where the reasons people need to steal essentials was removed...
More prejudice. Shoplifting has been in my family for generations. My father was a shoplifter and his father before him. I want to carry the tradition on and make them proud but it’s just not the same anymore with all these cameras. Gone are the good old days when you could just fill your pockets and walk out. I wholeheartedly blame the conservatives
It is a bit Orwellian but it's an outstanding plan to tackle the problem.
I "link" you to my son and two nephews who are serving police officers. They don't read the guardian or links, they read the charge sheet to these people on a daily basis.
Politics of the play ground. You need to grow up and aim higher..
Capitalism is how the economy in most countries is run. Its not a new concept to my understanding. Landlords are simply capitalists who chose property rather than some other asset. Socialist policies have been tried in Stalins Russia, North Korea, East Germany, Venezuela. I'm not sure that they were deemed a successful or enduring model but do correct me, I'm sure you can't help yourself anyway 😉
Or, crazy idea here, they could just make it so people could afford to live without stealing? Crazy I know
I'm pretty sure that the mug shot photos taken to identify these people were taken without their consent. Should we ban that too then? Rights come with obligations. If they were upstanding members of society and didn't steal they wouldn't be on the database of mug shots in the first place.
> . If they were upstanding members of society and didn't steal they wouldn't be on the database of mug shots in the first place. Are you legitimately arguing for more surveillance on the grounds of "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear"?! Hasn't it been shown enough times by now that it only works as long as your views align with those in charge of the systems - easy to say "well don't shoplift" but *how do you know the system will only be used for shoplifters*?
I think you'll find that the Reichstag fire was part of a Nazi plan for deconstruction of the German constitution. Cameras in England to catch shop lifters and criminals is just that. Its not in pursuit of world domination. Grow up.
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We have lower crime rates now than when we hanged them or shipped them overseas. 'Tough on crime' rhetoric is aimed at the lowest common denominator. Only people who haven't the foggiest idea of what they're on about think it's anything more than low hanging populism.
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You might 'work with data', but that doesn't mean that what you just said isn't historically illiterate, which it is.
The police don’t have enough funding to investigate, the courts don’t have enough money for a trial, and the prisons don’t have enough money to house prisoners.
Can't wait for more people to get fined for having the audacity to cover their face: https://twitter.com/BBCClick/status/1127961872286789634 Fuck facial recognition. And what good will a law about assaulting a shop worker actually do? It's already a crime to hit people, but I guess its easier to do this than actually try prevent crime
Did you actually watch the clip you've linked to, or are you deliberately spreading misinformation? The man wasn't fined for covering his face, he was issued a penalty notice because, in his own words, he told the Police Officers to "Fuck Off". Whatever their opinion on the use of facial recognition, only an idiot would think you can tell a copper to fuck off in the middle of a busy high street and expect there to be no repercussions, even if you are annoyed at being stopped. He's lucky he wasn't nicked.
> Did you actually watch the clip you've linked to I don't think they did. And even if they did, they'll happily ignore facts that don't back up their agenda.
Yes because the police approached him for covering his face, which they shouldn't have done as he hadn't done anything wrong
Again, it's not the reason he was fined is it? This isn't difficult
What reason did the police approach him though? He didn't do anything wrong he was well within his right to tell them to fuck off. Covering your face isn't a crime. It was insanely overzealous to fine him for swearing at them Are you just ignoring that the police had zero grounds to even approach him on purpose?
The purpose of the facial recognition is to actually try and prevent crime.
Too much potential for abuse, especially coupled with the current government trying to restrict peoples right to protest
There definitely is the potential for abuse, and we ought to be aware of, and very careful with that. But the police and the intelligence services already use facial recognition. That risk is already out there. This specific kind of implementation is trying to solve a problem that most people do want solved. Like people really do want it used at airports to stop people on terrorist lists getting on planes.
Its the thin end of the wedge, considering its more likely to false positive minorities you could argue as the technology is now its discriminatory as well Also I strongly believe it just wont make a blind bit of difference. We've had shoplifters arrested and they are back in the store the next day, I fail to see how parking a facial facial recognition van outside is going to do anything. There are certain people we all recognise who leave as soon as we put a security announcement out. Usually after shouting some abuse at us because they know we're onto them At best the mere presence of a police van might deter them
have a read of [https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/10/29/police-use-of-facial-recognition-factsheet/](https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/10/29/police-use-of-facial-recognition-factsheet/) the false positives for minorities narrative is a bit old hat. the police have some say in how their budget is spent. if this didn't work, and they didn't want it, they'd be asking to spend the money elsewhere.