Permanent facial recognition cameras are coming to London, despite campaigners warning the move is the first step towards ‘a dystopian nightmare’.
Croydon is set to see the city’s, and the rest of the democratic world’s, first permanent live facial recognition (LFR) placed to scan faces and match them to a criminal database.
They will sit attached to lampposts or buildings on pedestrianised streets, and be just a short walk away from where schoolgirl Elianne Andam was stabbed to death outside the Whitgift Centre.
There is relief among residents and shoppers, who hope the cameras will help bring down the rate of crime keeping them up at night.
Just last year, Croydon was named as the violence hotspot of London – with more than 10,000 violent crimes recorded in a single 12 month period.
Akosua Murphy, 60, has lived in the borough for 17 years, is relieved more is being done to make the area safe once again.
The cleaning lady told Metro: ‘Everyday I pray my grandchildren come home safe, crime is out of control – we saw what happened to Elianne Adnam and she was just an innocent girl.
‘I used to work at East Croydon station, and I’ve seen young people stabbing each other.
‘It’s only getting worse, the high street is a mess.’
The idea of the cameras will not be completely new to residents either. The Met’s facial recognition vans, which zip all over the city, stop in Croydon at least once a week, watching shoppers come and go from Costa and Superdrug.
But are these cameras going to be the saving grace of one of London’s most crime-riddled areas? Don’t hold your breath, says Big Brother Watch.
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Last month facial recognition software was installed across Cardiff for the Six Nations games. Despite scanning 162,680 faces, not a single arrest was made, according to the organisation.
Big Brother Watch frequently visits Croydon, to watch over how police were using the technology. And what they saw wasn’t a sign of good things to come.
Madeleine Stone, a senior advocacy officer at the organisation, told Metro the law needs to catch up with the technology first, as there is no legislation governing the use of facial recongition cameras.
‘The police have essentially been left off the leash and can do what they want with this,’ Madeleine said.
‘Everyone gets something wrong sometimes, but what happens when the algorithm gets it wrong? Who is responsible then?’
In May, a legal challenge was launched against the police after an anti-knife crime community worker was wrongly flagged and detained by police following misidentification.
Shaun Thompson was wrongly flagged as a person on the Metropolitan Police’s facial recognition database outside of London Bridge station.
He was held by officers for almost 30 minutes, who repeatedly demanded scans of his fingerprints and threatened him with arrest, despite him showing multiple identity documents further evidencing that he was not the individual on the facial recognition database.
Peaceful protesters and those on mental health watch lists also flagging in the systems.
Madeleine said: ‘We are the first democratic country in the world to do this. It is a dark path we are going down to become a surveillance state.’
But for residents, their priority is not protecting their privacy, but wanting crime to go down.
Shannon Kirwin, 20, helps run her family’s food van Old Skool Food, said she welcomes the crime reduction after seeing so many youths ‘go for each other’.
She told Metro: ‘I have sat in this food van, and I have seen gangs just pull out weapons on each other right in front of me – the place has gone down massively over the last decade.
‘But all the ones who are committing crimes are wearing balaclavas and face coverings, is there even any point to the cameras if they can’t see through that.’
Local musician Christian added the crime levels in the area ‘is getting ridiculous’.
He said: ‘I think it’s a good thing. This place is no longer a nice place. If you haven’t done anything wrong, there’s no need to be worried.’
The Met has claimed they have made 500 arrested thanks to LFR, including ‘dangerous individuals’ accused of domestic abuse and rape.
Mitch Carr, the Met’s neighbourhood policing superintendent for south London, wrote to community leaders earlier this month to announce the move.
He said: ‘I am currently working with the central team to install fixed LFR cameras in Croydon town centre. This will mean our use of LFR technology will be far more embedded as a ‘business as usual’ approach rather than relying on the availability of the LFR vans that are in high demand across London.
‘It will remain the case that the cameras are only switched on when officers are deployed on the ground ready to respond to alerts.
‘The end result will see cameras covering a defined area and will give us much more flexibility around the days and times we can run the operations.’
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