Wait, WHAT? NZ Police have new face recognition technology?
Police setting up $9m facial recognition system which can identify people from CCTV feed
Police have been quietly setting up a $9 million facial recognition system that can take a live feed from CCTV cameras and identify people from it.
This would push New Zealand into new territory for tracking citizens.
It will be run by a non-police contractor – US firm Dataworks Plus – and collect 15,000 facial images a year, with that expected to expand up to 10-fold.
What the fuck is this?
Cast your mind back to May and the sudden revelation that the NZ Police were trialling mass surveillance face recognition tech without any clearance…
Police trials facial recognition tech without clearance
Police conducted a trial of controversial facial recognition software without consulting their own bosses or the Privacy Commissioner.
The American firm Clearview AI’s system, which is used by hundreds of police departments in the United States and several other countries, is effectively a search engine for faces – billing itself as a crime-fighting tool to identify perpetrators and victims.
New Zealand Police first contacted the firm in January, and later set up a trial of the software, according to documents RNZ obtained under the Official Information Act. However, the high tech crime unit handling the technology appears to have not sought the necessary clearance before using it.
…and then news days later after that revelation the Police were doing a ‘stocktake’ of this face recognition software that no one had been given permission to use…
Police ‘stocktake’ surveillance tech after Clearview AI facial recognition trial
Last week, RNZ revealed police conducted hundreds of searches, including for suspects, using American software Clearview AI.
The trial, conducted between February and March, did not have the necessary sign-offs from the Police Commissioner, the Privacy Commissioner and the Cabinet.
Police said they do not intend to use Clearview because it was ineffective in New Zealand.
Police Commissioner Andrew Coster today said he had ordered a stocktake of any similar software being used.
“I’ve commissioned a stocktake of any surveillance-type technologies that we may be using or trialing to make sure that there’s nothing equivalent [to Clearview],” Coster said
…so the NZ Police used mass surveillance facial recognition software from an Orwellian company that illegally sources photos without any sign off from the Privacy Commissioner or their own Police Boss, they then hold a ‘stocktake’ of these types of unapproved face recognition software trials and lo and fucking behold the Police quietly admit to a $9million face recognition network they are setting up with zero oversight from the Privacy Commissioner?
How the fuck are the cops getting away with this?
They were caught trailing face recognition software with no approval, tell the public they will take a stocktake of these types of unapproved tests and the next thing we hear is they’ve actually gone ahead with a face recognition network?
It’s like calling the fire service to deal with a fire and them arriving with petrol to put out the flames.
The Police can’t get busted using unapproved mass surveillance programs, them tell the public they are looking into it to make sure that doesn’t happen again, and then get caught putting that mass surveillance system in place!
This requires URGENT investigation. The Police have been underhand and incredibly deceitful about this, and that doesn’t inspire any faith at all.
If the cops are going to be this malicious with the truth, why would we trust them with this vast unchecked power?
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Unelected nobodies do not run things precisely because they are not accountable to the public.
Hello, hello is there anybody there? asked the too oft maligned conspiracy theorist knocking on the door.
There is a massive difference between conspiracy theories, and real criminal conspiracies like this. One is verifiable by the fact that someone either: spill their guts, boasted about it, or guilty informed the right people.
People who push conspiracy theories make it harder to actually deal with real criminal conspiracies when they occur.
Hello, hello is there anybody there? asked the too oft maligned conspiracy theorist knocking on the door.
Putting aside the arrogance of the police to implement a system without any real oversight, even if what they did was ethical and approved, (which it isn’t and wasn’t), the other major issue is the accuracy of the system. A couple of studies revealed that false positive matching rates were higher among African-Americans, American Native Indians and Asians than among caucasians, which apart from the obvious must also mean that it is high among caucasians as well.
https://www.asisonline.org/security-management-magazine/articles/2020/05/facial-recognition-error-rates-vary-by-demographic/
The other question is who will have access to the information on this system? The police share their data with other government departments and probably private organisations, and government departments pass it on to other organisations including private investigators (remember the Thompson and Clark private investigators scandal) so privacy breaches will no doubt increase and innocent people will be targeted and harassed, even more now by the police and other organisations.
Well New Zealand is full of “white supremacy terrorists” as we keep getting told …especially white males and especially NZ licensed gun owners ( according to the Greens)
….so well what would you expect ?…the Police must protect us from these dangerous people
its only the beginning Bomber, things are going to get much much worse – https://www.mintpressnews.com/national-security-state-using-coronavirus-push-artificial-intelligence-driven-mass-surveillance/266820/
But you forgot to mention that the NZ police are the biggest gang in NZ and can pretty much do whatever the af they want, including collecting information on NZ’s without us knowing about it and then using the information against us. Dystopia here we come.
@Tuibelle – Agreed. The slow but ever so sure creep towards a police state without any checks or balances. Your use of the word Dystopia is spot on.
From RNZ: 31st Aug 2020, Police setting up facial recognition system
Excerpt:
This would push New Zealand into new territory for tracking citizens.
It will be run by a non-police contractor – US firm Dataworks Plus – and collect 15,000 facial images a year, with that expected to expand up to 10-fold.
Some of this information is contained in an Official Information Act (OIA) response police provided to Stuff last year, but tried to withhold from RNZ last week, until a complaint was made to the Ombudsman.
RNZ made inquiries with other agencies after revealing that the Internal Affairs Department has been – quietly, too – setting up a $20m passport processing system.
Both the department, and the police, are using some of the world’s most powerful facial recognition software, NeoFace, developed by NEC, a Japanese company with $44 billion in revenue a year.
Both said they did not tell the public as these are mere upgrades, and neither did a Privacy Impact Assessment – though Internal Affairs told the Privacy Commissioner about NeoFace, while the police did not.
Remember when you vote this government illegally shut the country down for 9 days for our good . The same will be said about this new police power that if you have done nothing wrong you will have nothing to fear. That is true but the rules can change at the whim of those in power or more frightening those working in the shadows of power. It is a worry that this was discovered by journalists not released b this government until it was uncovered.
Let people punch you five times, they’ll punch you five times. Let people punch you once and they’ll punch you once. Break that mother fucken arm and no one tells you what. Learn’t that growing up in Auckland.
What the hell is the point, invade the general public’s privacy so you can catch bad guys easier and quicker only to have the pathetic judicial system release them with nary a slap on the wrist to rinse and repeat.
Not much hope of Nash being grilled on this one or telling the truth about the secrecy involved. If Labour do have a majority after the election then expect more of this and the word transparency fading from the PMs political language.
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