Thread

500k facial scans at UK stations yield no arrests, 1 false positive

518 points · 305 comments · ilamont

jwally · 1790684914 · focus · HN ↗
I was thinking about this with flock cameras the other day...what's our actual ROI? Was the world horrible before and these initiatives are going to close a monster crime gap or is this just a giant fishing expedition ... just because?
1. JimmyBiscuit · 1790693207 · focus · HN ↗
  > what's our actual ROI
  In San Fransico Car Breakins dropped almost immediately by 50% and 75% in the long run since Flock cameras were introduced
  1. ooterness · 1790693628 · focus · HN ↗
    Source please. This does not sound credible. How does scanning license plates stop people from breaking into parked cars?
  2. jen20 · 1790693688 · focus · HN ↗
    I haven't validated your statistic (and it's unclear what "in the long run means" since this is a point-in-time thing), but assuming it's true, how do you determine it is causation and not correlation?
  3. okwhateverdude · 1790694512 · focus · HN ↗
    <a href="https://abc7news.com/post/san-francisco-car-break-ins-historic-22-year-low-heres-look-police-data/16112998/" rel="nofollow">https://abc7news.com/post/san-francisco-car-break-ins-histor...
    <a href="https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/san-francisco/car-break-ins-san-francisco-2/3667342/" rel="nofollow">https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/san-francisco/car-brea...
    I found some news articles that seem to back up this stat. It wasn't all attributable to the cameras though. It also included targeted enforcement strategy with bait cars and what not.

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