from the every-step-you-take-I'll-be-watching-you dept.
Sports Direct owner defends live face-recognition camera use:
Sports Direct's parent company says live face-recognition (LFR) technology has cut crime in its shops.
The cameras check faces against a watch-list, using a system called Facewatch.
On Monday, 50 MPs and peers supported a letter opposing the use of LFR by Mike Ashley's Frasers Group, which owns the company and other chains such as Flannels.
The company says it tells shoppers when the technology is installed in a shop.
Frasers Group told BBC News it took its responsibilities around LFR extremely seriously and stressed its effectiveness.
"Since installing this technology, we have seen a significant reduction in the number of criminal offences taking place in our stores," it said.
The letter criticising its use was organised by campaign groups Big Brother Watch, Liberty and Privacy International.
It says research into face-recognition technology suggests;
- 87% of "matches" in Metropolitan Police trials misidentified innocent people
- women and people belonging to some ethnic minorities are more likely to be misidentified than white men are
The technology up-ends the democratic principle of suspicion preceding surveillance and "treats everyone who passes the camera like a potential criminal", the letter adds.
[...] Shop managers' requests to add someone to the database had to be backed-up with full witness statements and explanations, which a panel of former police officers reviewed before accepting, Mr Gordon said.
"There is due process followed to ensure we only include individuals reasonably suspected of crime," he said.
Shop staff and "accredited super-recognisers" - analysts with an aptitude for recognising faces - checked every alert, he told BBC News.
Mr Gordon disputes the accuracy claims the letter makes about the Met Police's LFR, saying Facewatch is more than 99% accurate.
His figures have not been independently audited.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday April 29 2023, @10:29AM
As a privileged white man, this is why I always shoplift in blackface. Either that or disguised as an albino African-American lady: the face recognition AI completely loses its shit.
(Score: 0, Troll) by DadaDoofy on Saturday April 29 2023, @12:58PM (2 children)
What kind of company would buy a product that was wrong 87% of the time? I find the 99% accuracy much more believable and in line with what the technology is capable of. The race baiting in this article is a red herring. The real thing that is upsetting to some is people being held accountable for the things they've done.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29 2023, @01:36PM
You mean what kind of company would buy into security theater out of fear of their safety or profits for a product that promises to identify "undesirables" based upon an unjustified success number they seemed to have pulled out of their asses and which if they misidentify someone they don't suffer any significant legal consequences anyway? And as a bonus it is probably cheaper than building a wall around their stores to keep the "bad hombres" out too.
You're right, completely crazy.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday April 29 2023, @04:27PM
You're missing the point. There's more than one way for something to be right or wrong. My bet is that the 99% accuracy is for known faces trying to get past the cameras - false negatives of 1%. And it's probably a staged test so the real accuracy is lower. This is the tech industry we speak of. The 87% is probably the ratio of false positives to total positives. It probably has a low false positive rate, but there's so many more law abiding to criminals that they get a lot of false hits. Still 1 in 8 true positives is a pretty good rate, should it end being the actual number.
The bottom line though is that the presence of the cameras are for theater deterrence. You going to try your luck with shoplifting in a shop with a lot of cameras and face recognition tech? Or go somewhere that doesn't?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by SomeGuy on Saturday April 29 2023, @01:30PM (1 child)
"Sports Direct Owner Defends Live Face-recognition Camera Use"
Simple solution. Find a dead-ringer for this moron and add them to this criminal watch list. See how they like it.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29 2023, @01:39PM
Impossible! You'd have to somehow get it through the rigorous vetting process review by "a panel of former police officers" who I'm sure investigate each case sent them very thoroughly.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29 2023, @03:34PM (2 children)
A UK chain of sports shops which, at least locally, apparently does quite a nice bit of trade in the selling of baseball bats to any Ned that walks in the door (but strangely, never sells any balls, mitts etc) is worried about cutting crime.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday April 30 2023, @12:03PM (1 child)
Do people break bats more often than they lose balls?
Does an entire team have one bat for each person that might be at bat,
but only one ball for the pitcher?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2023, @03:35PM
You're missing the point.
Baseball is not a popular sport in the UK (less that 30,000 people regularly play it).
Baseball bats, however, are quite a popular item amongst our criminal fraternity for other, shall we say, concussively less sporting purposes...