Watch Desk posted an update
Suffolk Police plan to use a live facial-recognition camera van in Lowestoft on 3 November, Bury St Edmunds on 4 November and Ipswich on 5 November. The force says its August deployment scanned 80,000 faces and led to four arrests, according to the BBC.
Why it mattersThe system compares passers-by with a police watch list. Suffolk Police says images of people who are not on the list are deleted immediately. The van is being borrowed from Bedfordshire Police. The dates and the force’s description give residents a useful heads-up about where the cameras are due to operate, while the August figures offer a snapshot of the technology’s use. But four arrests do not, by themselves, show how accurate the system is or how often it identifies the right person.
Discuss: Should police publish more detail on accuracy and safeguards before each deployment, or is explaining the watch-list process enough?
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