Government will spend £55million on more facial recognition cameras is new ... trends now
A multimillion pound investment will go into facial recognition technology as part of the government's crackdown on shoplifters.
The government has announced a £55million boost to enhance facial recognition systems, including the use of mobile units to scan the streets for law breakers, alongside harsher punishments for anyone who assaults retail workers.
It marks a u-turn for the Conservative party, who previously blocked a Labour-backed amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill that would have made the assault of a retail worker a specific criminal offence, as they insisted it was not 'required'.
'I am sending a message to those criminals - whether they are serious organised criminal gangs, repeat offenders or opportunistic thieves - who think they can get away with stealing from these local businesses or abusing shopworkers, enough is enough,' Mr Sunak said on LBC.
The government has announced a £55m boost to enhance facial recognition systems, including the use of mobile units to scan the streets for law breakers
It marks a u-turn for the Conservative party , who previously blocked a Labour-backed amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill that would have made the assault of a retail worker a specific criminal offence
Live Facial Recognition technology utilised in Southend High Street, Essex last year
Under the new law, which will be introduced as an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill, criminals could receive up to six months in jail or an unlimited fine.
The investment will be implemented over the next four years, as will use vans in particularly crowded areas to help identify any wrong-doers or repeat shoplifters.
This comes after the apparent success of Project Pegasus. In October last year the Metropolitan Police wrote to 12 leading retailers, including Marks & Spencer, Boots and Primark asking them to send CCTV images of their 30 most prolific but unidentified offenders.
Of the images received, 302 were suitable to be uploaded and cross referenced with the custody database.
And the force is confident that the vast majority of the 149 matches found through FRT will allow officers to track the suspects down and build a case against them.
The Met's director of intelligence, Lindsey Chiswick, said the accuracy of the algorithm had rapidly progressed over the past few years. The technology is now so advanced that even if a subject was wearing a hat or mask and facing at an awkward angle, it can still create an accurate biometric template that could match a photo in the custody database.
'The alternative to using facial recognition would be an officer manually checking CCTV against custody images, which could take hundreds of hours,' Ms Chiswick said.
Silkie Carlo, director of civil
