Big Brother Really is Watching You

We tend to associate invasive monitoring systems with totalitarian governments who strip the rights and civil liberties from the oppressed society under the guise that authoritarian actions are carried out to keep the people cared for and safe.

Yes, this is the dystopian Oceania from the George Orwell Novel 1984, but it is now also England 2022 which is also becoming increasingly dystopian. For two years we have experienced an increase in the thought control publications from mainstream media, and the censorship violating our freedom of speech prevents us from doing too much about it.

Now we are being subjected to a “Big Brother” style surveillance system using Live Facial Recognition (LFR) that collects sensitive biometric data which among other privacy and data violations, may restrict our right to peacefully protest too.

Although this technology has not been authorised by Parliament, the College of Policing have published a new authorised professional practice which they say is to ensure police forces in both England and Wales take a consistent approach when using Live Facial Recognition technology.

The college said the technology can be used in operations to find “people who are missing and potentially at a risk of harm, and it can also find people where intelligence suggests they may pose a threat to themselves or others, and arrest people who are wanted by police or courts”.

In other words, they want us to feel that it will keep us safe and cared for perhaps? But the guidance also specifically allows innocent people to be put on facial recognition watchlists. The guidelines state that images that may be deemed appropriate ”for inclusion on a watchlist include a victim of an offence or a person who the police have reasonable grounds to suspect would have information of importance and relevance to progress an investigation, or who is otherwise a close associate of an individual”.

British police “are following the playbook of Russia and China by putting authoritarian facial recognition technology on our streets” according to Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo, who added, “We warned about mission creep with this Orwellian surveillance.”

However, David Tucker, head of crime at the College of Policing, said: “Guidance issued for police today is clear that live facial recognition should be used in a responsible, transparent, fair and ethical way and only when other, less intrusive methods would not achieve the same results.”

The data that will be collected is based on unique, biological or behavioural characteristics and yet individuals have no awareness, choice or control in the process, how can they ever make this fair or ethical?

We may have been increasingly desensitised to facial recognition technology which typically involves the one-to-one process where the participating individual has awareness of why and how their data will be used.

LFR on the other hand is used in a similar fashion to traditional CCTV and is directed toward everyone in a particular area allowing indiscriminate capture of their biometric data when passing within the range of the camera.

There may be data protection issues related to bias in facial recognition algorithms which could lead to unfair treatment of individuals according to the Information Commissioner’s Office who also believes that there is concern for the rights involved in processing children and vulnerable adults’ data, and the potential for discrimination and bias.

We cannot allow another dystopian policy to become the “new normal”.

Research by Patricia Harrity