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Call for facial recognition cameras to be banned amid privacy fears

A visitor takes a picture of a display demonstrating crowd surveillance at the stall of the artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology company Sensetime Reuters
A visitor takes a picture of a display demonstrating crowd surveillance at the stall of the artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology company Sensetime Reuters

A politician has called for a ban on the use of facial recognition cameras, amid growing fears about how the devices could be used.

The cameras have already been tested in the UK, but privacy groups say they’re inaccurate and can be used to track people at will.

San Francisco could become the first city in the world to ban the cameras after supervisor Aaron Peskin’s proposed Stop Secret Surveillance Ordinance.

It would mean that police had to seek approval before using or buying surveillance technology.

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The proposed ordinance would also include a blanket ban on facial recognition technology, and has gained support from privacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

In authoritarian regimes such as China, governments hope to use millions of facial recognition cameras to track criminals.

Police in China are now using hi-tech ‘smart glasses’ which use facial recognition to pick out suspects in a crowd – and have already led to seven arrests.

Police tested the equipment at a train station in the central city of Zhengzhou, and picked out seven suspects, accused of crimes from hit-and-runs to human trafficking.

They also picked out 26 people with fake ID, using the classes which are connected to a database of suspects.

Critics have already voiced fears that China’s communist party will use the glasses to identify dissidents.

China is a world leader in facial recognition technology, and already has a network of 170 million CCTV cameras, many armed with AI or facial recognition technology.

The regime plans to install 400 million more cameras in the coming years.

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