Perth's facial recognition cameras prompt scowls - and a campaign to stop 'invasive' surveillance

Perth City Council has reportedly been filming and tracking people moving around parts of the city without their knowledge. In what the council calls a trial, a network of 30 cameras with facial recognition technology have been deployed across East Perth. This has quietly gone on for six months. The cameras use deep-learning artificial intelligence (AI) to recognise faces and vehicles, and to count passing people – a form of population control which China widely employs, and is criticised for by human rights groups. But in Perth – the third Australian city to invest in the technology – many residents were unaware of the trial before it started.