Croydon (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Croydon becomes the first UK area to install permanent facial recognition cameras, sparking debate over surveillance and public safety.
An action by the Metropolitan Police that uses artificial intelligence to help identify suspects has made Croydon the first position in the UK to permanently deploy the technology.
The city center’s North End Road is lined with cameras that overlook people’s faces and match them to the police watchlists.
While some locals have welcomed the technology that it would help combat crime in the city, others, including several activists, have blamed the increased surveillance and contend that people should not have to rely on the cameras to feel safe.
In response to mounting enterprises over ongoing anti-social behavior in the area, the Met declared before this time that they would be installing fixed cameras on London Road and North End Road.
She stated the town has “just gotten worse over the years” and is now “generally not a nice area,” having grown up there before relocating a few years ago.
She claimed it’s a daily struggle to cope with antisocial behavior as a security guard. Chloe went on to say that the issue has gotten so terrible that the town’s Business Improvement District (BID) has hired Street Rangers to monitor the main street in order to assist companies and store owners.
Chloe says little has changed after the announcement, despite her belief that placing fixed LFR cameras could “potentially” assist reduce antisocial behavior.
“The majority of the kids these days wear balaclavas and ride through the town centre at high speeds on Surrons [electric off-road bikes],”
she said.
“It’s the best area to start”
because of antisocial behavior, she remarked when asked if she believed it was appropriate that Croydon was the first area in the UK to put fixed cameras.
Croydon resident Hamad shares this opinion, telling EastLondonLines that
“drug dealing is rife in and around West Croydon Station,”
which is why he favors the deployment of facial recognition technologies. However, he raised reservations about how helpful the technology really is in combating crime.
Hamad claimed that he hasn’t noticed many changes since the cameras were installed, implying that criminals have just changed how they behave.
“Antisocial behaviour has declined slightly but has just moved further down the road,”
he explained.
“What we need is more police presence and proper enforcement.”
Privacy campaigners have warned that the move could have serious implications.
Rebecca Vincent, Interim Director of Big Brother Watch, said:
“This unprecedented escalation in the use of facial recognition technology across the UK is alarming … Live facial recognition turns every passer-by into a walking barcode and treats us all as a nation of suspects.”
Privacy International also raised concerns, warning that “unchecked and indiscriminate mass surveillance will inevitably follow”.
According to the group’s study of over 100 Members of Parliament, 70% of them were unaware of whether facial recognition technology was being utilized in their own district, and 56% were either unaware of or mistakenly believed that there was a legislation limiting it.
Many locals have similar worries. Magnus Sorensen, a resident of Croydon, contended that
“we shouldn’t have to rely upon cameras to make areas safer.”
Magnus thinks that concentrating on surveillance ignores the bigger picture.
“Some areas are unsafe because of a higher concentration of socio economic issues, which this country fails to look at,”
he says, pointing to underlying social and economic aspects that lead to crime. He believes that the issues go beyond North End Road in Croydon.
Consistent disregard for these causes of crime, he continued, has resulted in” short-sighted results,” like facial recognition software, which he views as a band-aid result rather than an effort to make communities safer.
For locals like Magnus, the problem extends beyond privacy. He believes that authorities have gone too far with the cameras and what will be done with the information gathered.
“I do feel like it’s an invasion of privacy,”
he said, adding that there are better ways to tackle crime than relying on cameras. He also questioned what permanent LFR cameras meant for
“living in a fair, free and open society,”
drawing parallels between government surveillance and big tech’s data harvesting.
“Most people are innocent, law-abiding citizens,”
he said.
“Just because the cameras can pick up some criminals, why should everyone else’s right to privacy be harmed?”
What legal protections exist against fixed facial recognition in the UK?
In the UK, there’s presently no specific legislation devoted solely to regulating the use of fixed facial recognition technology. The general legal protections come primarily from data protection laws, mortal rights law, anti-discrimination regulations.
The Information Commissioner’s Office( ICO) requires that any use of facial recognition processing biometric data must comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.
This involves principles of legality, fairness, translucency, data minimization, and strict data security. regulators must conduct Data Protection Impact Assessments and be suitable to justify the legal base for recycling biometric data.