Facial Recognition Used by UK Police Is Alarmingly Bad Facial recognition is increasingly used to search for criminals in crowds, but it's got an awful false-positive problem. Facial recognition technology is increasingly being used to identify people in public places. It’s used in China to identify fugitives and jaywalkers , in Chicago to spot wanted criminals , at the Olympics to track journalists and event officials , and even inside Amazon stores to track purchases . This is raises a whole bunch of complicated privacy questions, but that's not all. Data from facial recognition systems in the U.K., shows the danger of false-positives. Facial recognition systems operate on a very simple premise: cameras can scan crowds of thousands of people continuously, and software can pick up on certain facial characteristics to positively identify an individual. For situations like s...
