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'Facial mapping' technology to catch criminals from CCTV footage on the way
Last updated at 00:43am on 05.06.08
Merseyside police Chief Constable Bernard Hogan-Howe: His force is piloting 'facial mapping' schemes
Police are within months of setting up the country's first system that recognises suspected criminals and terrorists from CCTV footage.
The 'facial mapping' scheme will enable officers to identify wanted criminals within minutes of being caught on tape.
It will compare photos from a digital mugshot database with film and stills from a crime scene and come up with around ten of the closest matches.
To build up its mugshot database, Merseyside Police – which is running the pilot scheme along with Lancashire Police and West Yorkshire Police – is taking digital photographs of 70,000 suspects arrested in Liverpool every year.
These include those accused of minor crimes such as motoring offences and the images will be retained even if they are not charged with any offence.
The chief constable of Merseyside Police, Bernard Hogan-Howe, told the magazine New Statesman: 'In future we could scan images of shoplifters and motorists who drive off from petrol stations without paying.
'Another example would be someone who is photographed committing an assault outside a nightclub.'
He said the system could be up and running 'later this year'.
Reader views (1)
As the Government already has a database of the Electorate's passport photos - unsmiling, so that this technology can be used - in actual fact they will be able to use it to locate where anyone is, not just 'criminals'.
So with proposed changes to the law you could be stopped and searched for no real reason whatsoever, taken to the police station and have your photograph and DNA stored on a national database forever, and then be released without charge. Or even, held for 42 days and THEN released without charge.
The Nazi's would have killed to have had something like this to augment their database of ethnicity. What the hell is Britain going to be like in 20 years' time? Basic principles of individual freedom and rights that have stood for centuries have been swept away because the people in charge cannot do their jobs competently and so seek technological aid to try to catch up: they ignore the repercussions further down the line.
- Roz, Chamonix, France
