Police to Catch Wanted Criminals Using Facial Recognition at Festival

Law enforcement authorities in the country of Bedfordshire in England will deploy ‘state-of-the-art’ facial recognition technology at an upcoming local festival known as the ‘Bedford River Festival’, taking place on July 20 and 21,  to track down and catch some of the most wanted criminals in the county. This will be the first-ever use of the technology in the area.

The system will be working actively both inside the festival and the surrounding area. It will compare faces from camera feeds directly with a specially made police watchlist, that will include wanted criminals and individuals with outstanding warrants, in real time. Images flagged as matches shall then be reviewed further by an officer to see if action is actually needed.

A Huge Focus on Privacy with Security

The festival’s implementation of biometric face recognition is one of the better examples of taking into consideration common public concerns when it comes to the technology. 

In addition to manual review, the system will automatically delete all images flagged for review within 24 hours. Images and other biometric data captured that trigger no alert will be deleted immediately, with no possibility of retrieval.

Any and all places where the facial recognition system is deployed will be clearly marked, to ensure that people are aware that they are in a space where their face is being recorded. The signs will also contain QR codes which can be scanned for further information, and leaflets will also be handed out.

This example created by Bedfordshire authorities shows that technology like liveness detection and facial recognition for crime prevention is possible while maintaining effective measures to ensure that the privacy and security of the data of individuals is maintained and secured. 

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