Live facial recognition reached the London Underground yesterday, starting at Victoria
British Transport Police ran their first facial recognition deployment inside a London Underground station on Tuesday, at Victoria. Cameras scan the faces of everyone passing through a marked zone and compare them against a watchlist assembled for that particular deployment; when the system flags a possible match, an officer reviews the alert and decides whether to approach. Images that do not match are deleted immediately and never stored. The force has been running the trial since 11 February at mainline transport hubs and has now extended it to November, rotating between Underground and Network Rail stations. The stated aim is to find people wanted for serious offences, and to measure both the technology's effectiveness and the public's response to it.
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