Facial Recognition / Detection in UK Businesses
Discussion
This is going to sound weird but I’m asking out of interest as I know face detection hasn't been well received when the police have tried it.
Just wondering if it’s legal for a business to run facial recognition or not. I was just dropping off a parcel to a local Collect+ point which happened to be in a small convenience store. I walked in and noticed on the camera screen that they had 4 CCTV cameras covering various angles and next to that was a list of faces with timestamps.
It looked like this but the big display was 4 smaller displays showing different cameras. Then down the side was the faces.
Obviously a business can do whatever they want but I have never seen anything like this before and I just wondered if it was legal for them to run a system like this in their store?
Just wondering if it’s legal for a business to run facial recognition or not. I was just dropping off a parcel to a local Collect+ point which happened to be in a small convenience store. I walked in and noticed on the camera screen that they had 4 CCTV cameras covering various angles and next to that was a list of faces with timestamps.
It looked like this but the big display was 4 smaller displays showing different cameras. Then down the side was the faces.
Obviously a business can do whatever they want but I have never seen anything like this before and I just wondered if it was legal for them to run a system like this in their store?
ging84 said:
What do you believe it does that cctv with a human operator has not been doing for 40+ years that might make it illegal?
It's going to be storing facial data on a computer system. I just wondered if the systems were allowed to be operated in businesses or if they shouldn't be?
Interesting question and one that will be asked more and more as time goes on.
I can't see that it's doing anything that "normal" CCTV doesn't do at the moment - it's maybe highlighting faces and recording when it "sees" them again, which as someone has said is nothing that a human CCTV operator wouldn't do, including the storing of them.
What it won't be doing at the moment is linking your face to you.
I was in a meeting in a former communist state recently and I had to provide photographic ID (and flight numbers, the hotel that I was staying at etc - made me wonder if it was "former" after all) to the organisation running the meeting.
They used a system like this to link faces to ID's at the security desk at the entrance and I could see it working just as you described, except this time names accompanied the faces.
If the example that I gave extended to dropping parcels off at the newsagents (not sure how really) then I think I'd be worried, as it is it seems like anti-shoplift rather than anti-privacy.
I can't see that it's doing anything that "normal" CCTV doesn't do at the moment - it's maybe highlighting faces and recording when it "sees" them again, which as someone has said is nothing that a human CCTV operator wouldn't do, including the storing of them.
What it won't be doing at the moment is linking your face to you.
I was in a meeting in a former communist state recently and I had to provide photographic ID (and flight numbers, the hotel that I was staying at etc - made me wonder if it was "former" after all) to the organisation running the meeting.
They used a system like this to link faces to ID's at the security desk at the entrance and I could see it working just as you described, except this time names accompanied the faces.
If the example that I gave extended to dropping parcels off at the newsagents (not sure how really) then I think I'd be worried, as it is it seems like anti-shoplift rather than anti-privacy.
echazfraz said:
What it won't be doing at the moment is linking your face to you.
Why not? The tech is all there. Ignoring any possible big brother databases, any place where you give name and address (like your car service place) could link that against facial recognition data. However is that any different from the friendly service dude saying good morning Bert, I see you've brought your Toyota in with a puncture for us to fix.Bert
BertBert said:
Why not? The tech is all there. Ignoring any possible big brother databases, any place where you give name and address (like your car service place) could link that against facial recognition data. However is that any different from the friendly service dude saying good morning Bert, I see you've brought your Toyota in with a puncture for us to fix.
Bert
I appreciate that the tech is there, but I suspect that nowhere like this is yet linking my face as I walk in to my details as I hand them over - there would need to be a really good picture of me from somewhere already to allow the system to learn (I think).Bert
Agree that there's a similarity with the tech knowing you, but he's probably not then calling all of the other garages, tyre places, credit card companies, double glazing salesmen, HMRC, etc. to also tell them that you've walked in!
Edited by echazfraz on Monday 17th June 09:27
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