UK privacy chief sounds alarm over live facial recognition

A file photo of a live demonstration using AI and facial recognition in a dense crowd during CES 2019 in Las Vegas. While law enforcement agencies around the world are rapidly adopting LFR as a real-time tool to help quickly sweep large crowds for criminals, civil liberties groups have warned of the dangers of discrimination and other abuse by law enforcement using facial recognition. — AFP

Britain’s privacy chief issued a warning over the risks from facial recognition technology, saying people should be free to go shopping or walk around a town “without having our biometric data collected and analyzed with every step we take”.

Elizabeth Denham, the UK Information Commissioner, said in a blog post that she’s deeply concerned about the potential for live facial recognition technology, or LFR, to be used “inappropriately, excessively or even recklessly”. She urged organisations and private companies to put people’s privacy “at the heart of any decisions to deploy” the technology in public spaces.