Crime reduced by 10.5% during the pilot from October 2025 to March 2026, the Metropolitan Police says.
Of course it will lead to reduced crime, and allow them to solve more of them. That’s kind of expected, when you can find and track where is anyone 24/7.
But then you inevitably get a far-right governemt, because that’s the rapidly rising trend all over the world, and suddenly ‘crime’ also means being trans, or feeding homeless, or not being far-right enough, or speaking up about how maybe we shouldn’t jail trans people.
10+ years ago, facial regonition like this would still be controversial, but you could maybe kind of have a benefit of the doubt that it might be worth the extremely reduced crime rate.
Now, when democracies are falling left and right and it’s only a matter of time when your country starts their own version of concentration camps, it’s a really stupid fucking idea.
So, fuck this bullshit propaganda piece.
i agree with all of that.
Genuine question though, is it propaganda?
I mean it’s essentially:
“Police install draconian system to to target the crimes of the peasants, while continuing to ignore the rich, system working as intended”
Edit: wait no, actually i just saw the ‘Address fears’ section, they are clearly pretending this is the only problem.
A specific subset of crimes reduced, i wonder what the demographic of those criminals is.
Not to say you shouldn’t be arresting criminals, but they should be arresting all criminals, they don’t need a 1984 style facial rec system for a 10.5% drop in crime.
Well, i say that , but equal opportunity crime prosecution isn’t really what the police are for, so…
Actually arrest and prosecute the many many known criminals in the government and corporate world, no capital outlay in camera networks required.
Pretty sure that would give you a solid reduction in crime numbers as well.
