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

518 points · 305 comments · ilamont

  1. balderdash · · focus · HN ↗
    my mom lives in small town that only has two roads in/out of town and the police have alprs on those. there's no violent crime there, and all the police department does is traffic (DWI's, speeding and parking tickets, and accidents) and respond to small town crime (noise complaints, stolen bicycle, stray/lost dogs etc). I think the only thing that the alpr has ever caught people for is out of date vehicle registrations - but now the police department wants a flock camera because they are "great crime fighting tools"
    1. mytailorisrich · · focus · HN ↗
      ANPR catches lack of MOT, road tax, and insurance. They also alert on wanted cars.

      They are a good thing to have in general, the issue with those things is always data retention and access by authorities. Currently I think that data are retained for 12 months so, for the sake of argument, let's say you commit a serious crime now and only come to the attention of the police in 10 months, well they can still query all of your car's movements at the time of the crime from the ANPR network's database...

      1. antonvs · · focus · HN ↗
        > They are a good thing to have in general

        Perhaps, but not the way Flock does it. Transparency, oversight, controls - all essentially just missing.

        "Disruption" to these people means "try to sell the most legally questionable service possible until we get slapped down by the society we're trying to extract money from."

        1. mytailorisrich · · focus · HN ↗
          Oh yes, I agree with that.
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