Facial recognition technology isn’t new. But Police Officers wearing facial-recognition glasses to identify the occupants of vehicles is!
Cops in Beijing started trailing the facial recognition glasses last week and, let’s face it, it’s not as if they needed to seek the approval of the public before going ahead with the trial.
And, personally, I don’t see why they should need to seek ‘approval’ before using the technology.
You either want to live in a society free of crime, or you don’t. And, if like most sensible people you do want to live in a crime-free society, then this is the sort of technology that will help to enable that to happen.
According to Reuters, the smart glasses were first tested in Beijing at a road checkpoint last week and were successful in nabbing a few dodgy people who were on the run from the Cops.
Powered by Artificial Intelligence, the glasses compares faces and registrations of cars to a database in REAL TIME and displays a red warning box to the wearer when a hit is made against the information contained in the database.
The AI-powered glasses are made by a company called LLVision, the same company behind similar police sunglasses rolled out at a Henan (China) railway station last month.
The technology was quickly praised by authorities for helping identify several individuals who had previously committed crimes, from human trafficking to traffic infringements.
Surveillance and facial recognition technology is on the rise in China.
There are currently 170 million surveillance cameras, and the government hopes to more than triple that number by 2020.
That would be nearly one camera for every two citizens, which the Ministry of Public Security hopes can eventually be used to identify any citizen within three seconds.
China’s large sample population and lax privacy laws have allowed police and private companies to pioneer such technologies with few limitations.
COMMENT
I am all for this sort of technology being used by the Police. I know that not everyone will agree with me and that’s fair enough.
But I would rather live in a society where my children can go out and enjoy themselves, knowing that the security services are doing everything they can to keep them safe, than for them to go out and I/we end up being constantly worried about what might happened to them.
We all know what happened last year across the UK. ANYTHING that helps to keep us safe should be embraced. And if that means that my face is scanned by facial recognition software when I go out in my clapped out Nissan Micra, then so be it.
Maybe we should split the county in two, and have the people who are against this sort of technology living in one half of the country, and people who are for it in the other.
I know which half would be a safer community to live in….
Written by one of the many admins of Emergency Services Humour on Facebook, who is also a regular contributor to our popular fortnightly satirical eMagazine that is emailed straight to the inbox of our ‘VIP’ subscribers.
Our eMagazine, affectionately called ‘S__ts & Giggles’ contains all of our BEST & EXCLUSIVE content that we do not share in public and ANYONE can subscribe – whether or not you are in the emergency services, and regardless of where in the world you live.
To find out more, CLICK HERE
(Once you have subscribed to our eMagazine, you will then also be invited to join a closed Group on Facebook JUST for VIP subscribers where the humour and banter continues!)
Before you go...
We need your help. As former emergency services & armed forces personnel, we pride ourselves on bringing you important, fast-moving and breaking news stories which are free from the negative bias which is often directed at the emergency services by some sections of the mainstream media.
One of the reasons we started 'Emergency Services News' was because we became tired of reading badly informed stories about the emergency services which seemed only ever to highlight negative aspects of the job.
We want to be the unheard voice of the remarkable men and women who serve in the emergency services, NHS and armed forces. And with around 500k page views each month, we are getting there!
As income from ads, the mainstay source of income for most publishers, continues to decline; we need the help of our readers.
And remember, if you have a service, product or job vacancy that you would like to promote to our large readership, then you can buy advertising space in our articles.
You can support emergency services news from as little as £1. It only takes a minute. Every contribution, however big or small, is vital for our future.
Please help us to continue to highlight the life-saving work of the emergency services, NHS and armed forces by becoming a supporter.
