'Facial Recognition Tech Mistook Me For Wanted Man'

Bruce66423 shares a report from the BBC: A man who is bringing a High Court challenge against the Metropolitan Police after live facial recognition technology wrongly identified him as a suspect has described it as 'stop and search on steroids.' Shaun Thompson, 39, was stopped by police in February last year outside London Bridge Tube station. Privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch said the judicial review, due to be heard in January, was the first legal case of its kind against the 'intrusive technology.' The Met, which announced last week that it would double its live facial recognition technology (LFR) deployments, said it was removing hundreds of dangerous offenders and remained confident its use is lawful. LFR maps a person's unique facial features, and matches them against faces on watch-lists.

Mr Thompson said his experience of being stopped had been 'intimidating' and 'aggressive.' 'Every time I come past London Bridge, I think about that moment. Every single time.' He described how he had been returning home from a shift in Croydon, south London, with the community group Street Fathers, which aims to protect young people from knife crime. As he passed a white van, he said police approached him and told him he was a wanted man. 'When I asked what I was wanted for, they said, 'that's what we're here to find out'.' He said officers asked him for his fingerprints, but he refused, and he was let go only after about 30 minutes, after showing them a photo of his passport.

Mr Thompson says he is bringing the legal challenge because he is worried about the impact LFR could have on others, particularly if young people are misidentified. 'I want structural change. This is not the way forward. This is like living in Minority Report,' he said, referring to the science fiction film where technology is used to predict crimes before they're committed. 'This is not the life I know. It's stop and search on steroids. 'I can only imagine the kind of damage it could do to other people if it's making mistakes with me, someone who's doing work with the community.' Bruce66423 comments: 'I suspect a payout of 10,000 pounds for each false match that is acted on would probably encourage more careful use, perhaps with a second payout of 100,000 pounds if the same person is victimized again.'

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