Alarm being raised over launch of facial recognition in UK shops that instantly alerts police

 Another article promoting scaremongering and fear narratives for the upholders of the pantomime and their desire to fool us into thinking their desired needs into our own consciousness and then ultimately our reality . 

 +++++++++++++++++++++++

According to a report from The Guardian, a controversial facial recognition technology deployed in British shops is poised to escalate its capabilities, enabling real-time notifications to police when high-risk individuals enter stores. The development has sparked intense debate over privacy, surveillance, and the balance between public safety and civil liberties in everyday retail environments.

Facewatch, the company behind the system already operational in more than 100 businesses including major retailers like Sainsbury’s, B&M, and Spar, announced plans to introduce a pioneering feature this autumn.

The upgrade will allow the technology to immediately flag the presence of the most serious repeat offenders to law enforcement authorities, with alerts delivered in an average of just four seconds.

Facewatch’s chief executive, Nick Fisher, described the advancement as a “unique technical development” aimed at addressing prolific retail crime. “No single organisation will solve retail crime on its own,” Fisher stated.....<<<Read More>>>...

The Real Reason For The Facial Recognition Roll Out

 Facial recognition is set to be ‘rolled out’ across the entire country, after a human rights challenge was thrown out by the courts.

Well, of course it was.

The establishment want facial recognition, and the courts are merely an extension of the establishment.

It’s a stitch up, and you’ll see just how much this is true, once jury trials in the UK are dispensed with.

Then there will be no checks and balances as the state appointed judge will rule on behalf of the state at every opportunity.

Do you remember the Bart Simpson meme, where the kids are goading him?

“Say the line!”, they order, alluding to the fact that the line is wholly predictable, and then Bart says it, and they all cheer?

You know what I’m talking about?

Well, that’s basically how I read news articles these days.

So as soon as I saw that facial recognition had been given the go ahead, I scrolled the article for the predictable Bart Simpson line.

It only took a paragraph for it to appear, and it came courtesy of Policing Minister Sarah Jones.

You ready?

“Law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear.”

Yes! Predictability bingo champion once again. What do I win? A facial recognition camera?

Nothing? OK.

The problem with the claim that “Law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear.”, is quite a significant one given that it simply isn’t true.

This whole legal challenge came about because people are being misidentified by the technology, and arrested for crimes they didn’t commit, so you can be law abiding and still fall foul of Big Brother,

And also, what does “law abiding citizen” really mean?...<<<Read More>>>

Essex Police Pause Facial Recognition, But Why Was It Rolled Out at All?

Essex Police has paused its use of live facial recognition after a Cambridge study found the system was statistically more likely to correctly identify black people than other ethnic groups, and more likely to identify men than women. 

The force also flaunted worrying figures: around 1.3 million faces were scanned between August 2024 and February 2025, producing 48 arrests and “only one mistaken intervention.” That is being presented as reassurance. 

It should be read as evidence of how quickly mass biometric monitoring is being normalised in Britain. Millions of people were scanned in public before the public had any clear answer to a basic question: what level of proof was ever produced to justify deploying this in the first place?...<<<Read More>>>...

UK government is designing and installing a Digital Identity Panopticon

 By her own admission, the UK Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, aims to create a digital identity Panopticon using AI and technology to constantly monitor citizens.

The UK government’s digital identity system will use biometric data, such as facial recognition, to create unique identity tokens, enabling real-time monitoring and predictive analysis of individual behaviour.

To establish the official UK digital identity Panopticon, the government and its partners do not require us to adopt any new forms of digital identity. Though it is trying to manipulate us into submitting our biometric authentication token to its GOV.UK digital identity wallet. And once we are manipulated into adopting our digital identities, they will be made interoperable across the whole of the UK economy.

Though the official UK digital identity Panopticon will supposedly only target criminals, in order to identify them, from among millions of British citizens, the state will spy on everybody all of the time.

To be clear: The UK government’s official position is to use AI as the “eyes of the state” and to set its gaze firmly “on you at all times.” This is the openly stated purpose of the official UK digital identity Panopticon.

Jeremy Bentham’s proposed Panopticon was a circular prison with a central observation post, or watchtower, that could potentially see into every cell. Unsure if they were being watched, the theoretical prisoner was compelled to behave as ordered at all times. The envisaged Panopticon oppression stemmed largely from self-regulation.

The official UK digital identity Panopticon goes much further than Bentham could have possibly imagined. As its prisoners, there will be no reason for us to harbour any doubts. We can be certain that we will be under constant surveillance. Unlike the 18th century model, the modern AI-based digital Panopticon will not rely on self-regulation, though that socially engineered condition will still persist.

Mahmood claims the state’s Panopticon objective is to identify criminal behaviour. Of course, what the state determines to be criminal behaviour is liable to change....<<<Read More>>>...

Facial recognition cameras to catch criminals could make town centres 'no-go areas for minorities', Home Office study claims

 Live facial recognition cameras risk turning town centres into no-go areas for some ethnic minority people, research suggests.

Ministers launched a consultation yesterday on emerging technology that analyses 'motions and emotions' and could help catch criminals, prevent suicides and find missing people.

However, a Home Office study carried out in advance of the 10-week consultation revealed concerns about the accuracy of the cameras among certain demographic groups.

Surveys found minority groups were more likely to avoid - or consider avoiding - areas where facial recognition cameras are being used, which tends to be town centres and other busy locations.

Around one in ten (11 per cent) of ethnic minority respondents said they would avoid an area being monitored, compared to 21 per cent who said they would consider minimising the amount of time they spent there.

For black people, nine per cent said they would completely avoid the area, compared to four per cent of people overall and three per cent of white people.

Researchers found men aged 16 to 34, lesbian, gay and bisexual people and those educated to degree level or above were also more likely to avoid areas with live facial recognition....<<<Read More>>>...

Your Borders Turn Biometric: New Face & Fingerprint Checks Nobody Voted For

 Airports are being rebuilt worldwide around your identity. Face recognition and fingerprint scanners are being introduced in the same of “seamless travel” such as “frictionless boarding”. But this autumn’s rollouts around the globe point to a greater shift towards population control, and build a permanent identity layer arriving without public debate about scope, retention or redress. 

Europe is switching on its Entry/Exit System (EES) today, 12 October, enrolling face and fingerprint recognition for non-EU travellers on first entry and logging all crossings thereafter. The rollout scales up in early 2026 and is already prompting rail terminals, ports and airports to add booths and contingency lines for first-time registrations. 

The UK’s Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) is now a default pre-clearance for visa-exempt visitors and is checked before you fly. In Asia, Singapore has moved residents to passport-free clearance using facial and iris biometrics at all Changi terminals, and Dubai is upgrading walk-through tunnels with multi-angle face capture to speed up immigration. In the US, CBP facial comparison now covers all arrivals from abroad, with face-based exit in large hubs and extending to land borders too.  

One-by-one, these are operational upgrades to improve the efficiency of travel. Together, though, they reveal a coordinated shift to biometric identity as the spine of modern-day life....<<<Read More>>>...

Facial recognition will be used to unlock your digital identity; what has this got to do with climate change?

 A recent announcement of a “mandatory” digital ID is not unique to the UK. New digital ID laws have been implemented across the world in recent months, suggesting a broader effort to establish a global system of control.

For years, Aman Jabbi, a Silicon Valley technology veteran, has been warning about the creation of a “digital prison” through the integration of advanced surveillance technologies – including facial recognition, artificial intelligence and a network of surveillance devices – which will enable continuous monitoring and individual identification.

The long-term plan is that “facial recognition will be used to unlock your digital identity,” he said.

In 2025, the British state announced it was about to impose a “mandatory” digital ID on the population, without which they would not be able to work.

The arrogant duplicity behind the roll-out has been jaw-dropping.

The name “Britcard,” for instance, is meant to resonate with feelings of national pride and suggest that it is all about proving how British you are in the face of all those illegal immigrants that somehow keep sneaking into the country.

But the authorities are laughing in the faces of what they consider to be a hopelessly gullible public – the “Brit” in fact stands for “Biometric Registration Identification Tracking”.

And it is not the specific British response to a specific British problem that it is being sold as....<<<Read More>>>...

False arrests surge as UK police ramp up dystopian facial recognition scans

 The United Kingdom is rapidly morphing into a biometric police state, where citizens are no longer presumed innocent until proven guilty—but rather scanned, flagged, and detained based on faulty algorithms. 

The Labour government, under the guise of "public safety," is aggressively expanding live facial recognition (LFR) surveillance nationwide, despite mounting evidence of wrongful arrests, privacy violations, and systemic misuse. 

Shaun Thompson, a 39-year-old volunteer mentor working to reduce knife crime, became the latest victim of this Orwellian nightmare when he was falsely identified as a criminal and threatened with arrest—simply for walking past a camera. 

His case, now headed to the High Court, exposes the terrifying reality of unchecked surveillance: Innocent people are being treated as suspects in their own cities.....<<<Read More>>>.....

Food for Thought #741

 

UK government covertly puts us all in a police lineup by using our passport photos for identification by facial recognition

The UK government has secretly been allowing police forces to search over 150 million passport and immigration database photos with Orwellian facial recognition technology.

The number of police mass facial recognition searches in passport and immigration databases is skyrocketing. Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that the number of searches of the passport database surged from 2 in 2020 to 417 in 2023, and there was an almost sevenfold increase in searches of the immigration database from 16 in 2023 to 102 in 2024.

By using these databases as giant facial recognition watchlists, we are all at risk not only of profound invasions of privacy but misidentifications and injustice. It is the equivalent of the police secretly putting us all in a lineup of criminal suspects for identification without our knowledge.

In the video below, Big Brother Watch briefly explains what the UK government is surreptitiously doing and why it affects everyone with a passport and, possibly in the future, driving licences.

As one member of the public said, “We’re not far off from people being dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night because the computer has said they’ve done something, which they haven’t.”

Together with Privacy International, Big Brother Watch are calling for a suspension of facial recognition searches of the passport and immigration databases and has made preparations to pursue legal action against the Home Office and Metropolitan Police. You can learn more about their campaign to stop mass facial recognition surveillance and the associated legal action HERE.....<<<Read More>>>...

AI Facial Recognition Software Resulting In False Arrests

 “Orwell is here, and he’s living large, man!”

Police nationwide are misusing facial recognition software, relying on it to arrest suspects without additional evidence, according to a new investigation by the Washington Post.

Most departments aren’t required to disclose or document its use. Among 23 departments with available records, 15 across 12 states arrested suspects based solely on AI matches, often violating internal policies requiring corroboration.

One report called an unverified AI match a “100% match,” while another claimed the technology “unquestionably” identified a suspect. At least eight people have been wrongfully arrested in the U.S. due to AI matches, two of which were previously unreported.

All cases were dismissed, but basic police work—such as checking alibis or comparing physical evidence—could have prevented these arrests. The true scale of AI-fueled false arrests remains unknown, as most departments lack disclosure requirements and rarely reveal AI use.

The Post identified 75 departments using facial recognition, with records from 40 showing arrests tied to AI matches. Of these, 23 provided sufficient detail, revealing that nearly two-thirds made arrests without corroborating evidence. Departments often refused to discuss their practices or claimed officers relied on visual judgment to confirm matches.

In Florence, Kentucky, police used uncorroborated AI matches in at least four cases, with mixed outcomes. Local prosecutor Louis Kelly defended officers’ judgment in identifying suspects, including those flagged by AI.

For its report, the Washington Post reviewed facial recognition use by 75 police departments, with detailed records from 23. It found 15 departments, including Austin, Detroit, and Miami, made arrests based solely on AI matches without independent evidence.

Some lacked records or transparency, while others relied on questionable practices like showing AI-identified photos to witnesses. Interviews clarified some cases, but reliance on uncorroborated AI remains widespread....<<<Read More>>>....

Swedish Police Want to Fight Crime with Live Facial Recognition

 The Swedish police want to use facial recognition in real time to crack down on serious crimes.

Government investigators have already drafted a bill that will make it possible to use the technology. The regulation, however, still needs to be completed before it can be tabled, National Police Chief Petra Lundh told publicly funded radio broadcaster Sveriges Radio last week.

Lundh also noted that the legislation must comply with the EU AI Act and could potentially be temporary until crime rates settle down.

Sweden has been experiencing a flood of gang-related attacks, including firearms and explosives, leading the Scandinavian country to crown itself with the title of highest per capita gun violence rate in the European Union. Police Chief Lundh believes law enforcement agencies could use cameras to find suspects.

“It is not unusual that we have a picture of the likely perpetrator, but then we cannot find him or her,” Lundh says.

The suggestion has already been met with criticism. The technology could make incorrect matches for people with dark skin leading to perceptions that the AI is racist, says lawyer Kristofer Stahre.

“I am worried about what consequences it may have for the Swedish people,” he says.

The Swedish government has been working on expanding the use of biometric data in policing on other fronts.

In September, the Swedish Legislative Council announced it does not object to a government proposal to expand police access to DNA and biometric databases for investigating serious crimes. The proposal was submitted to the Council in July and includes a wider collection of biometric data during investigations, introducing new biometric registries and matching with the Migration Agency’s fingerprint and facial photo registry. The new regulation also allows for the use of DNA-based genealogy during investigations of murder and aggravated rapes.

The police noted that it has already successfully used biometric databases to solve a 24-year-old cold case involving a child sexual assault by matching DNA samples.

The next legislative step for the proposal is the Swedish Parliament. If the Parliament approves the amendment, it will enter into force on July 1st, 2025....<<<Read More>>>...

Facial recognition and AI monitoring deployed in India’s largest railway network

 India’s rail networks are adding AI and facial recognition systems to their stations, part of a growing biometrics and surveillance market experts predict will be worth more than US$15 billion within the next five years.

A release from IDIS Global says the South Korean video surveillance manufacturer is providing Indian Railways, Asia’s largest rail network, with a 4K camera system equipped with integrated AI video analytics and facial recognition technology from Herta Security. The first phase of a major technology update for the rail system saw cameras placed across hundreds of platforms in 230 high-traffic stations across the country’s eastern region in May 2024.

Herta Security’s facial recognition algorithms provide real-time identification and alerts to persons-of-interest. IDIS’s configurable deep learning analytics system analyzes motion, loitering, abandoned object detection and line crossing. With a monitoring center installed at every fifth station along the network, railway authorities have a connected ecosystem of command and control hubs through which to monitor, analyze data and respond to crisis events.

Moreover, the system’s video management platform offers mobile surveillance through the IDIS Mobile Plus app, wherein image and video captured from smartphones can be fed into the system.

“Indian Railways wanted the most flexible, robust, future-proof video surveillance solution to provide a secure foundation for growth and development plans,” says Rahat Jain, managing director of IDIS Securitatem Solutiones Pvt Ltd, a joint venture between IDIS and Indian systems integrator M2M Cybernetics. “With IDIS video, the Railway Protection Force now have full confidence that they are operating 230 of the safest and most secure stations, resulting in two more regions being identified for upgrade.”

Indian Railways 14,000 trains carry an estimated 9.5 million passengers daily. The network expects to handle up 40 percent of global rail activity by 2050.

Railway lines in Delhi are also acting on AI. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has plans to deploy AI as part of an initiative to improve efficiency and crowd management, according to a report in the Economic Times. DMCR Managing Director Vikas Kumar says AI for driverless trains is part of the plan, along with amped up facial recognition and CCTV camera surveillance....<<<Read More>>>...

EU visitors will soon be subject to facial scans and fingerprinting under new initiative

 Anyone traveling to Europe will soon have to deal with fingerprinting and facial scans, under the European Union's (EU) two new border management initiatives: The European Entry/Exit Systems (EES) and the European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS).

EES and ETIAS are part of the large-scale IT systems that the EU has been developing for "collecting, processing and sharing information relevant to external border management."

Here are the things travelers need to know about the two separate, but interconnected, travel regulations EU intends to launch...<<<Read More>>>...

Legal Complaint Filed Against Co-Op’s “Orwellian” Facial Recognition

Big Brother Watch claims supermarket biometric scans of “thousands of shoppers” is “unlawful” and “Orwellian in the extreme.”

Privacy rights group Big Brother Watch issued a statement last Tuesday stating they had filed a legal complaint with the Information Commissioner claiming that Southern Co-operative’s use of live facial recognition cameras in its supermarkets is “unlawful”. The legal complaint, sent via the group’s lawyers from data rights firm AWO, claims that the use of the biometric cameras “is infringing the data rights of a significant number of UK data subjects”.

Southern Co-operative supermarkets use facial recognition software with surveillance cameras from Chinese state-owned firm Hikvision, which also provides cameras for the CCP’s concentration camps in Xinjiang and has been associated with serious security flaws. The firm is banned from operating in the US and a group of senior parliamentarians recently urged the Government to ban the cameras from the UK.

Big Brother Watch is a UK civil liberties campaign group fighting for a free future. “We’re determined to reclaim our privacy and defend freedoms at this time of enormous technological change. And we fight to win,” their website states.

Trudeau Wants to Use Facial Recognition Digital ID for Travel by Next Year

The Trudeau government has been working with major Canadian airlines to formally bring in digital ID, facial recognition, and biometric travel documents to air travel by 2023.

According to an article from the Canada Gazette, the government’s outlet, “In accordance with PS’ Forward Regulatory Plan 2021–2023, the need to update the [Secure Air Travel Regulations] to offer more options to travellers and the industry to meet pre-aircraft boarding identity verification requirements through innovation was also considered during the stakeholder consultation exercises.”

“This includes digitized identification documents, digital identity documents and biometric travel documents. While four air carriers confirmed their intent to implement innovative identity management solutions in the short to medium term, no specific immediate change has been identified for the SATR.”

The government clarifies what they mean by digital identity documents and biometric travel documents towards the bottom of the article:

“For the purpose of this proposal, digitized, digital and biometric documents refer to digital copies of physical identification documents that are scanned or updated, digital identification documents issued by a government authority, and electronic identification documents that use biometric identifiers (such as facial recognition) respectively.”

The proposal has come under the guise of protecting Canada from terrorists by enhancing the Passenger Protect Program (PPP).

According to the government, Canadians could potentially be assigned a Canada Travel Number (CTN) connected to all their personal information that is cross-referenced with Secure Air Travel Act (SATA) lists to determine whether someone poses a national security risk.

They add that establishing a CTN will “prevent delays.”

To confirm a traveller is really the one attached to their CTN digital ID, the government proposes using biometric data collection, including facial recognition, as a possible pre-screening requirement....<<<Read More>>>...

Wearing Masks Stumps Facial Recognition Algorithms

[David Icke]: Many facial recognition companies have claimed they can identify people with pinpoint accuracy even while they’re wearing face masks, but the latest results from a study show that the coverings are dramatically increasing error rates.

In an update Tuesday, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology looked at 41 facial recognition algorithms submitted after the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in mid-March. Many of these algorithms were designed with face masks in mind, and claimed that they were still able to accurately identify people, even when half of their face was covered.

In July, NIST released a report noting that face masks were thwarting regular facial recognition algorithms, with error rates ranging from 5% to 50%. NIST is widely considered the leading authority on facial recognition accuracy testing, and expected algorithms to improve on identifying people in face masks....<<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...

Facial Recognition Backlash Grows

[David Icke]: When the American Civil Liberties Union ran a test of Amazon.com Inc.’s facial recognition technology, the software falsely matched 28 members of Congress, many of them minorities, with mugshots of arrested people from police files.

Now, some of those lawmakers are drafting new legislation to curtail the use of facial recognition by police departments and government agencies. They’re looking to harness the public outrage over police misconduct and racial inequities, which have also put tech companies on the defensive over their sales of these products.

Civil-rights advocates have long complained that facial recognition tools promote bias by misidentifying people of color. But it’s taken the widespread anger and sorrow over the death in police custody of George Floyd, an African-American Minneapolis man, to galvanize the debate....<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...

The Extinction of Privacy and Personal Security Via Biometrics and the Cashless Society

[David Icke]: In a survey of 1,000 UK shoppers by the retail personalisation company RichRelevance, respondents were asked to rate a suite of in-store shopping technologies as either “cool” or “creepy”, and facial recognition fell decidedly on the creepy end of the scale.

In this survey it was found that companies will soon be using a range of technical tools to achieve sales via personalised product recommendations and promotions.

With screens displaying their products, possibly utilising an image of you and even getting assistants to bring products, say clothes, and automatically unlock dressing room doors.

Of course, the only way they can do this is by using facial recognition systems. As soon as you walk in store, your mobile gives you away. This provides the retailer with sufficient information to identify your age and gender, whether you are are a high-value customer and your spending habits. All of this was found to be very ‘creepy’ by respondents.

There are no laws or guidelines limiting their use and as soon as it gets into the wrong hands problems occur. One would not normally think that our own security services would be a threat to innocent civilians going about their lawful business....<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...

How can a small patch of printed material fool A.I. surveillance?

[Natural News]: This one’s for sci-fi lovers: A team of machine learning researchers from KU Leuven in Belgium found a simple hack to trick surveillance systems into thinking that a person is invisible.

In their paper, which they presented in this year’s Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, the team revealed how wearing a colorful printed patch no bigger than a vinyl record is enough to evade an artificial intelligence system designed to detect humans.

“We believe that, if we combine this technique with a sophisticated clothing simulation, we can design a T-shirt print that can make a person virtually invisible for automatic surveillance cameras,” the researchers wrote in their report.

The team also uploaded a video to demonstrate how the patch works. In the video, two researchers stood in front of a camera outfitted with an algorithm that identifies objects and humans in the frame. While the program marked the person without the patch, his counterpart (who was wearing the patch) wasn’t detected. As it was flipped to its blank side, the camera then detected both researchers...<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...