Quick Take…UK High Court backs Facial Recognition Rollout
Kit Knightly
Yesterday evening, the UK’s High Court ruled in favour of the Metropolitan Police in a legal challenge pertaining to the use of Live Facial Recognition Technology (LFR) across London’s transport network.
The case had been brought by Silkie Carlo of Big Brother Watch and Shaun Thompson, a youth worker who was previously misidentified by the technology, “over concerns it could be used arbitrarily or in a discriminatory way”.
Specifically, their lawyers argued that the current powers claimed by police governing the use of LFR would breach articles 8, 10 & 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR),
But the High Court judges said “nah”, and dismissed the challenge in favour of the police.
Shocking, right?
The establishment judges voted in favour of the establishment cops using technology to violate people’s rights in the name of protecting the establishment.
‘Cause for a second there we didn’t know which way that might go.
The failure of this legal challenge will open the door for a national rollout of FTR across high streets and transport hubs up and down the country.
There’s a good, technical breakdown of the legal proceedings here. The claimants have already stated they plan to appeal the ruling.
Personally, I question the decision to base the case on protecting the innocent from “errors” in the LFR tech, rather than the question of the right to privacy as a general principle, but I’m not a lawyer…and they were probably going to lose whatever they said.
All in all, it’s just another example of the increasing normalization of authoritarianism in the UK.
The UK Parliament has just passed a law banning smoking for everyone born after January 1st 2009, meaning the legal age of smoking will increase by one year every year until the last smokers die off.
Some will say “that’s good, tobacco is poison”, but I will always argue that people have the right to live as wisely or foolishly as they want, as long as they are not hurting other people. And I don’t trust any government empowered to protect me “for my own good.”
Oh, and the British schools are going to be made to ban smartphones, too.
It’s all getting very claustrophobic in the UK right now.
But, in totally unrelated news, black balaclavas are relatively inexpensive and can be purchased from most major clothing retailers.
Consider stocking up, until they’re illegal too.
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The law is banning smoking or to sale cigarettes to people under 18 years old?
(LFRT) is already in use in Britain, many of the big supermarkets already use the technology – the second you step in the door it maps your face – and retains and shares the info simultaneously, but as you say it will now be rolled out all over – and they’ll be able to map your entire days journey from it in pictures – one part of the Minority Reports in action, we need to wear, hats – masks and fake moustaches to f*ck it up, or contact lenses or in extreme cases, new eyeballs (pigs eyeballs).
I read today that the Assisted Dying Bill in England – will make a comeback sometime in the near future, in the hope that it passes, pro-assisted dying folk were interviewed by the BBC today, Esther Rantzen’s ( a mediocre tv presenter), her daughter was ask whether she hoped it passed and she said yes I hope so.
As for smoking it does hurt folk that don’t smoke – second hand smoke breathing it in can cause serious illnesses to those who don’t smoke.
They are in a corner with surgical masks, however. They can ban ski masks. But not surgical masks. Because, you know, the thing.
Oh no, have I picked the wrong time to relocate here from NL? But then what country is not going this way? (All independently of course because global coordination on a huge scale is a silly conspiracy theory!)
Masks are useful for FTR too and timely, considering there’s a bird flu pandemic festering in the background for which they’ll soon be offering vaccinations.
Oh, what are the symptoms of bird flu do I hear you ask ?
Common symptoms include a high fever, cough, sore throat, muscle aches, headache, and conjunctivitis (red eyes).
Shades of Convid……….?
Step by little step we’re morphing into Airstrip One.