Image source: Richard Townshend, CC BY 3.0
The UK Government’s policing minister has encouraged the wider use of facial recognition technology, saying it can be used with images from a wide range of sources.
Chris Philp highlighted the issue as part of a speech last week at the Police Superintendents’ Association Conference, emphasising that it could be applied to sources other than CCTV cameras.
He said technology can play an important role in tackling low level crimes such as shoplifting and anti-social behaviour that have a strong effect on perceptions around public safety.
“So one thing I would particularly point to is the potential presented to deliver the all reasonable lines of inquiry commitment using facial recognition from video footage recovered from CCTV cameras, things like ring doorbells, mobile phones and so on,” he said.
Algorithms advance
Philp said the algorithms to support facial recognition have become more sophisticated over the past year and much better able to find a match on the Police National Database PND) or a police force’s custody database.
“So I would strongly encourage anyone to try and recover every image running through the PND database, and it’s quite likely you’ll get a hit and some forces are doing this to a great extent already,” he said.
“All forces are doing it to some extent, but not every force is doing it as much as they could do.”
This could provide a major asset in investigating crime and prosecuting criminals, he added.
Philps’ comments have come against an ongoing controversy over the use of facial recognition. The biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner recently made a case for licensing some uses of the technology, South Wales Police ran into a legal challenge over its deployment, and the Metropolitan Police has attracted criticism from civil liberties groups for its trial deployments.
In addition, the Scottish Police Authority recently published a digital strategy that includes a more cautious approach to the adoption of the technology.
But the Home Office has been a strong advocate for the technology, and last year the College of Policing published a code of practice for its use.
