We told you so—UK police uses creepy facial recognition technology to run you down

We told you so—UK police uses creepy facial recognition technology to run you down

With the police utilising facial recognition technology to identify the youth responsible for the riots and looting of last week, Kipp can’t help but feel Big Brother is really watching us all.

August 16, 2011 3:10 by p.deleon

Not too long ago, Kipp blogged about just how creepy we found Facebook’s insta-facial recognition feature to be.

And given a recent report on tactics the British police are utilising in order to identify the rioters and looters, we weren’t too far off the money.

Now, if you actually read the report, you will learn that while British police are using facial recognition software that is still being tested for use at the 2012 Olympics the software rendered mixed results. A face-based facebook application for this purpose has been abandoned.

So, though we are not completely there yet…it is where we are heading. Sure, in such instances the police are using the technology for the good, but it can also mean that this technology can get into the hands of people who will not have your best intentions at heart. What do you think? Should we all deactivate our Facebook pages, not before un-tagging ourselves in each picture and deleting every single post? Or is this Kipper being our over-paranoid self?

Not too long ago, Kipp blogged about just how creepy we found Facebook’s insta-facial recognition feature to be.

“Don’t you think this feature is crossing over a very thing borderline between innocently efficient friend-tagging and a freakish show of power over how much Facebook can actually control the information you supply them? This bold move by Facebook to actually suggest they know who your friends are, and their direct FB I.D., is just a little too 1984 for us” were our exact, and if we may, prophetic words.
And given a recent report on tactics the British police are utilising in order to identify the rioters and looters, we weren’t too far off the money.
Now, if you actually read the report, you will learn that while British police are using facial recognition software that is still being tested for use at the 2012 Olympics the software can rendered mixed results. A face-based facebook application for this purpose has been axed.
So, though we are not completely there yet…it is where we are heading. Sure, in such instances the police are using the technology for the good, but it can also mean that this technology can get into the hands of people who will not have your best intentions at heart. What do you think? Should we all deactivate our Facebook pages, not before un-tagging ourselves in each picture and deleting every single post? Or is this Kipper being our over-paranoid self?