The Met chief claims that facial recognition will drastically change how criminal investigations are conducted. He predicts that this technology will be as effective as DNA testing—one of the traditional methods in law enforcement—in the near future.
Met Chief Claims Facial Recognition Will Transform Law Enforcement
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley, who is the most senior police official in the U.K., shared his prediction regarding the role of facial recognition in criminal investigations.
The Guardian reported that Rowley referenced the recapture of Daniel Khalife, the terrorist suspect who recently escaped HMP Wandsworth.
"We've also shown recently that live facial recognition is massively effective at picking out wanted offenders from crowds of people," explained the Metro chief.
Rowley also shared his excitement about the next phase of facial recognition tech in criminal investigations. This is specifically retroactively using the technology to identify suspects from CCTV images.
Sir Mark claims that facial recognition is showing immense potential at this stage.
"The results that we're getting are beyond what I expected and I think are going to transform investigative work, potentially, in the way that DNA transformed investigative work 30 years ago," added Rowley.
However, the campaign group Liberty warned the Metro commissioner, saying that his comments would trigger the right to protest of those who are against the use of facial recognition in law enforcement.
Why Facial Recognition is Criticized
There's no denying that facial recognition is an effective technology in protecting smartphones and other gadgets.
However, people have been criticizing the use of this technology in law enforcement; some of them claiming that it could lead to dystopia.
Industry Today reported that facial recognition has a lot of pros. But, this innovation also has its downsides, which really concerns many people.
Here are some of the reasons why facial recognition tech is still unaccepted by the public:
- The use of facial recognition in law enforcement could violate the privacy of people.
- Critics said that facial recognition systems are still not 100% accurate. Because of this, it can mistakenly identify innocent individuals as suspects.
- Some experts warned that facial recognition is prone to manipulation. It can be evaded by criminals who are very tech-savvy.
These are just some of the downsides of facial recognition. If you want to learn more about why it is still criticized, you can click this link.
