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The recent coronation of King Charles III was a high-profile example of when facial recognition technology has been used to monitor a crowd, but there are plenty of others. The technology is used by law enforcement all over the UK and other countries.
It’s now common in US airports. It’s being used to monitor refugees and identify dead bodies in Ukraine. Even Beyoncé fans have been subjected to it.
And there’s more to come. The UK government is reportedly planning to add facial recognition to the police’s body-worn devices, drones and numberplate cameras. It may soon be very difficult to leave your house without having your face scanned.
There are serious questions about whether the benefits of this technology outweigh such concerns. But steps could be taken to address the issues people are worried about.
Facial recognition can be used by police to scan many faces in a crowd and compare them with a “watch list” of known criminals. This “live facial recognition” is used with the aim of reducing crime. It can also be used retroactively on recorded CCTV footage.
In the UK, the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 provides a legal basis for the use of surveillance camera systems in a public place.
And according to the government’s surveillance camera code of practice, it’s justifiable to use facial recognition systems in decisions that could negatively affect people, such as whether to arrest them, so long as there is a human in the loop to supervise and make decisions.
So the use of facial recognition systems, or those for other types of biometric information, cannot be used for autonomous decision making, such as automatically tracking a suspect across multiple camera feeds.
But why should this be of concern to law-abiding citizens? Civil liberties groups argue facial recognition use in public places affects our privacy and freedom, particularly in terms of its ability to track individuals at mass gatherings and to potentially engage in racial profiling.
Security cameras have long captured us as we went about our daily lives. However, authorities easily being able to put a name to a face in the video footage is something we’re not so used to.
The technology creates a situation where many more people could get caught in the sights of the authorities than before. A person’s casual indiscretions or errors of judgement can now be easily tracked and linked to a name and address.
Those with a criminal record could be targeted in public based on their past, regardless of whether they intend to carry out any illegal activity. The technology could provide new opportunities for racial profiling, where authorities track or suspect people based on their background, rather than because of specific information about them.
Facial recognition could also be used against people with no criminal past or plans to commit a crime but who the police simply want to stop, such as protesters. The Metropolitan Police may have announced that facial recognition would not be used to target activists at the coronation, but they also provoked outrage for arresting anti-monarchy demonstrators who were later released without charge.
It’s also important to recognise facial recognition technology still suffers from inaccuracies, which can result in false positive matches where an innocent person is mistaken for a known criminal.
With facial recognition posing such perceived threats, it could have a chilling effect on free speech and demonstrations
However, there are ways that the technology could be used more safely. Law enforcement teams could perform two preliminary steps – activity recognition or event detection – before they resort to face recognition. This approach can help minimise the potential for privacy violations and false positive matches.
Activity recognition refers to the process of identifying and categorising human activities or actions based on CCTV or other sensors. It aims to understand and recognise the activities of individuals or groups, which can include standard activities such as running, sitting or eating.
On the other hand, event detection focuses on identifying specific events or occurrences of interest within a given context. Events can range from simple events like a car passing by or a person entering a room to more complex events like accidents, fights, or more unusual behaviour. Event detection algorithms typically analyse CCTV and other sensors to detect and locate events.
Hence, activity recognition or event detection should be the first step before applying facial recognition to a surveillance camera feed.
Ensuring the data from cameras remains anonymous can also enable police to study the activities of people in the crowd while preserving their privacy. Conducting regular audits and reviews can ensure that the collected data is handled responsibly and in compliance with UK data privacy regulations.
This can also help to address some of the concerns related to transparency and accuracy. By using activity recognition or event detection as a first step, it may be possible to give people more clarity – through signage, for example – about what exactly is going on during police surveillance in a public place.
It is the responsibility of the state to ensure the privacy and security of its citizens in order to foster a healthy society. But if facial recognition is implemented in a way that a significant proportion of citizens feel infringes their rights, it could create a culture of suspicion and a society where few people feel safe expressing themselves publicly.
Nadia Kanwal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The Iranian government has announced several arrests in connection with the reported poisoning of more than 7,000 schoolgirls in more than 100 schools around the country. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has condemned the poisonings, saying perpetrators should be “severely punished”.
Yet other government messages are confused. The education department announced that girls who had been taken to hospital were suffering from “mass hysteria” and the education minister insisted that 95% of the girls were merely suffering “fear and worry”.
The available evidence, including reports that pupils detected a strange smell in their classrooms, suggests a number of mass gas attacks in Iranian girls’ schools. Dismissing this reality as “hysteria” is a futile attempt to absolve the state of its culpability.
The act of dismissing the suffering inflicted on Iranian girls as mere “hysteria” comes after a prolonged period of violent suppression of Iranian protesters over the past six months. The widespread protests were sparked by the murder of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish-Iranian woman who was fatally beaten by the morality police in September 2022 for wearing her hijab improperly.
Since the protests began, thousands of protesters – many of them women and girls – have been arrested and by the end of January it was reported that 41 people had been sentenced to death for protesting. Hundreds of people have been killed in the streets and many Iranian girls have reportedly been raped by security forces while in custody.
Reports of poisoning in girls’ schools – which had been a major centre of protests – began to emerge in November last year from the city of Qom, home to the most senior clergy in Iran. Girls were reported to be displaying a range of symptoms including difficulty breathing, burning sensations, vomiting and paralysis of the lower extremities. Speaking to the UK’s Guardian newspaper recently, a local journalist said: “One doctor told me that based on the symptoms they’re seeing, it’s likely to be a weak organophosphate agent”. Organophosphates are toxic chemicals often used as pesticides in agriculture.
The immediate question is whether these alleged poisonings are connected with protests in girls’ schools after Amini’s death. Young women have been particularly visible in what has amounted to a nationwide uprising against the Islamic Republic, which has as its slogan: “Women, Life, Freedom”.
While the supreme leader called the poisonings “unforgiveable” and called for the death penalty for perpetrators, the head of Iran’s judiciary threatened to charge anyone who “spreads rumours and incitement” about the issue. Consequently, numerous critics contend that the supreme leader’s proclamation is merely an attempt to gloss over or conceal the truth.
Despite these poisonings going on for several months now, there remains a lack of clear information about the circumstances of the attacks and the chemicals used. The lack of media freedom in Iran hasn’t helped. But the fact that the attacks have occurred throughout the country would suggest that whoever is behind them has access to a significant quantity of these chemicals and has the organisation to orchestrate such a large number of attacks across the country.
That’s why there has been increasing suspicion that either an extreme faction within the state is responsible, or that a state with 16 parallel security organisations to monitor every facet of life should be able to identify the masterminds behind these nationwide attacks.
Comparisons have been made with the shooting down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Ukrainian airliner, Flight 737, in January 2020. Regime officials categorically denied responsibility for a week until emerging evidence compelled them to accept accountability.
Once the poisonings – and the treatment of parents who complained and were savagely beaten by regime security officials – went viral on social media and were picked up by international news outlets, the blame game began to unfold rapidly.
The president, Ebrahim Raisi, attributed the attacks to “foreign enemies” – a fairly typical response in Iran. The regime heavily relies on the abstract notion of a foreign enemy – usually America – to absolve itself of any responsibility. In this case Raisi was not specific about which country was behind the alleged poison attacks.
But the issue is further feeding unrest in a country which remains on a knife-edge. Hundreds of thousands continue to protest against the state for political repression, corruption, and discrimination against women and ethnic minorities.
The problem faced by the Islamic Republic is that there is massive support for the protests. A leaked government poll from November 2022 found that 84% of Iranians expressed a positive view of the uprising and trust in the government and its media outlets has fallen sharply in recent years. More than 60% of respondents in an online survey said they wanted to transition away from the Islamic Republic.
Several observers have noted similarities to acid attacks carried out in 2014 when assailants on motorcycles threw acid in the faces of at least eight women who were driving with their windows down. One woman died, and the remaining victims sustained permanent physical impairment.
Following the acid attacks, thousands of people demonstrated in the city of Isfahan to express their horror and outrage. Many Iranians believe that the victims were targeted because they wore clothing considered by hardliners as “inappropriate”. So the arrest and murder of Amini for not wearing her hijab in the approved manner has resonated in the minds of many ordinary Iranians.
Nobody was held accountable for the 2014 acid attacks. But things are different now. Back then, the state did not face the same crisis of legitimacy as it does currently. Now, a protest that began in defence of women’s rights, secularism and democracy has spread across almost all of Iranian society encompassing men and women young and old, urban and rural, workers and intellectuals. Although the Islamic Republic is accustomed to internal and external upheavals, it is currently facing an existential crisis.
By attacking girls in their schools the only possible motive must be to perpetuate a climate of fear in Iran. Perhaps fear is the last weapon in the arsenal of a regime that appears to be struggling for survival.
Afshin Shahi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
For anyone with a pet, you’ll know how much happiness they can bring to your life. Pets are part of the family – which is why, as someone who shares their life with a companion animal, it’s been so hard to hear about the thousands of people having to give up their pets due to the cost of living crisis.
Alongside rising energy prices, interest rates, rents and mortgages, the cost of caring for a dog has almost doubled since 2019. According to Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, the average figure is now around £2,000 a year – the price of pet food, healthcare and insurance have all gone up.
Pets4Homes, a pet classifieds site, recently found that 8% of pet owners are considering “giving up their pet”. The RSPCA has reported a 25% rise in the number of “abandonment incidents” from 2021 (10,519) to 2022 (13,159). Cats Protection has also seen an 18% rise in cats abandoned by their owner, while Dogs Trust received a “record-breaking 50,000 handover enquiries” last year.
Of course, circumstances change. When COVID hit and people were locked down in their homes - bored, lonely and anxious – it seemed the ideal time for a new pet. In the UK alone, an estimated 3.2 million households acquired a pet during the pandemic. Dogs were the most popular (in 57% of these households), with cats a close second (38%).
But with demand for pets now back down to pre-pandemic levels, smaller animal rescue centres are feeling the strain. According to the All-party Parliamentary Dog Advisory Welfare Group, dog rescue in the UK is in a “state of crisis never seen before”.
Statistics support this. The most recent Pets4Homes UK Pet Industry Report found that 42% of rescue centres were at 100% occupancy in 2022, compared with 22% in 2019. Of those centres, 26% reported “financial reasons” as the most common reason why people are giving up their pets – with older people and middle-income earners particularly affected.
If you’re struggling to provide for your pets, these money saving tips and support initiatives will hopefully be useful.
Pet food has increased massively in price, so it’s worth shopping around and looking at cheaper brands. Which? advises that dry pet food is “usually the most economical”, buying in bulk can reduce monthly costs, and that switching brands could save around £80 a year for a medium dog and £100 a year for one cat.
With dry and wet food, supermarket own-brands are generally good value for money. The RSPCA has an excellent cost of living advice hub, and suggests mixing your pet’s regular food with a cheaper brand to make it stretch further.
A Dogs Trust-commissioned poll of owners in October 2022 revealed that almost a quarter (23%) say the rising cost of dog food is their biggest worry in terms of caring for their dog. This led the charity to call upon the government to remove VAT from pet food. This 20% cost reduction could make a big difference - and increased public support could help to make this happen. So why not write to your local MP to ask for their support?
The Trussell Trust supports a network of more than 1,200 independent food banks in the UK, each providing emergency food and support. Many include pet food as part of this. The RSPCA Pet Food Bank project, supported by the Pets at Home Foundation (a charity set up by the retailer Pets at Home), collects pet food donations and delivers them to food banks.
Recognising that “no one should have to choose between feeding themselves or their pets”, the animal welfare charity Blue Cross is also running pet food banks and partnering with various organisations across the country.
It’s worth seeing if there’s one close to you as more and more are popping up – such as the Pet Food Bank Service in South Wales, which started in 2018 and has since provided more than 136,000 pet meals and items. All of these centres offer support and also welcome donations.
Pet insurance is still widely seen as a privilege. It’s an added expense but can potentially save thousands of pounds in veterinary fees. The Association of British Insurers reported that the average premium dog policy stood at £274 per year in 2021, while the average claim was £848. There are different options available, including low-cost “accident-only” insurance for as little as £5 a month.
Paying for neutering or spaying and wormer, tick and flea treatments can save money in the long run by preventing future health conditions. Some vets offer monthly payment plans to spread the cost, while charities such as the PDSA and Blue Cross provide low-cost or free veterinary treatment for eligible families.
Cats Protection also offers financial assistance for neutering your cat, while Dogs Trust offers discounted dog behaviour training.
Ultimately, if possible, it’s important to keep people and their pets together during the cost of living crisis. As well as safeguarding the wellbeing of both humans and animals, this will help to reduce the financial burden on animal rescue centres, and the number of healthy, rehomeable animals being unnecessarily euthanised.
Daniel Allen is founder of Pet Theft Reform and patron of the Stolen and Missing Pets Alliance (Sampa).
FreshRSS