The Department of Homeland Security collected data on Chicago residents accused of gang ties to test if police files could feed an FBI watchlist. Months passed before anyone noticed it wasn't deleted. On November 21, 2023, field intelligence officers within the Department of Homeland Security quietly deleted a trove of Chicago Police Department records. It was not a routine purge. WIRED has made this article free for all to read because it is primarily based on reporting from Freedom of Information Act requests. Please consider subscribing to support our journalism.

Experts have warned of a'frightening expansion' of'Orwellian' technology as the government expands the use of live facial recognition across the country. Ten vans equipped with facial recognition cameras will be deployed across seven police forces – Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley and Hampshire. The Home Office maintains that this technology will only be used to catch'high–harm' offenders with rules to ensure'safeguards and oversight'. According to the government, the technology has already been used to make 580 arrests in London over the last year, including 52 registered sex offenders. However, rights groups have raised concerns that the unprecedented rollout of this surveillance technology risks becoming overly intrusive.

South Wales Police have revealed plans to deploy live facial recognition cameras in Cardiff during this year's Six Nations rugby internationals. The cameras will be placed at'key points' across the city centre, and will alert officers to anyone who is on a predetermined watchlist. The force claims that the cameras will help to'keep visitors safe'. 'The expansion of facial recognition cameras around the city centre really enhances our ability to keep visitors safe from harm,' said Trudi Meyrick, Assistant Chief Constable. 'Our priority is to keep the public safe and this technology helps us achieve that.'

Civil liberties campaigners have said that a proposal made by Keir Starmer on Thursday to expand the use of live facial recognition technology would amount to the effective introduction of a national ID card system based on people's faces. Silkie Carlo, the director of Big Brother Watch, said it was ironic the new prime minister was suggesting a greater use of facial matching on the same day that an EU-wide law largely banning real-time surveillance technology came into force. "Expanding live facial recognition means millions of innocent Britons being subjected to automated ID checks," said Carlo. "These are the surveillance tactics of China and Russia and Starmer seems ignorant of the civil liberties implications." Live facial recognition has, until now, largely been used in the UK by the Metropolitan police and South Wales police, as a real-time aid to help officers to detect and prevent crime, including at public events such as last year's coronation.

Some of Britain's biggest retailers, including Tesco, John Lewis and Sainsbury's, have been urged to pull out of a new policing strategy amid warnings it risks wrongly criminalising people of colour, women and LGBTQ people. A coalition of 14 human rights groups has written to the main retailers – also including Marks & Spencer, the Co-op, Next, Boots and Primark – saying that their participation in a new government-backed scheme that relies heavily on facial recognition technology to combat shoplifting will "amplify existing inequalities in the criminal justice system". The letter, from Liberty, Amnesty International and Big Brother Watch, among others, questions the unchecked rollout of a technology that has provoked fierce criticism over its impact on privacy and human rights at a time when the European Union is seeking to ban the technology in public spaces through proposed legislation. "Facial recognition technology notoriously misidentifies people of colour, women and LGBTQ people, meaning that already marginalised groups are more likely to be subject to an invasive stop by police, or at increased risk of physical surveillance, monitoring and harassment by workers in your stores," the letter states.Its authors also express dismay that the move will "reverse steps" that big retailers introduced during the Black Lives Matter movement, including high-profile commitments to be champions of diversity, equality and inclusion. Meanwhile, concerns over the broadening use of facial recognition technology have further intensified after the emergence of details of a police watchlist used to justify the contentious decision to use biometric surveillance at July's Formula One British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

It's never been about safety as much as it has control, serving and protecting only to the benefit of the status quo. In More than a Glitch, data journalist and New York University Associate Professor of Journalism Dr. Meredith Broussard, explores how and why we thought automating aspects of already racially-skewed legal, banking, and social systems would be a good idea. From facial recognition tech that doesn't work on dark-skinned folks to mortgage approval algorithms that don't work for dark-skinned folks, Broussard points to a dishearteningly broad array of initiatives that done more harm than good, regardless of their intention. In the excerpt below, Dr. Broussard looks at America's technochauavnistic history of predictive policing. Reprinted with permission from The MIT Press.

Live facial recognition cameras are a form of mass surveillance, human rights campaigners have said, as the Met police said it would press ahead with its use of the "gamechanging" technology. Britain's largest force said the technology could be used to catch terrorists and find missing people after research published on Wednesday reported a "substantial improvement" in its accuracy. The research, carried out by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), found there were minimal discrepancies for race and sex when the technology was used at certain settings. It was commissioned by the Met and South Wales police in late 2021 after fierce public debate about police use of the technology. But the human rights groups Liberty, Big Brother Watch and Amnesty have said the technology is oppressive and "turns us into walking ID cards".

Online marketplace eBay incorporated additional buying signals such as "Add to Watchlist," "Make Offer," and "Add to Cart" into its machine learning model to improve the relevance of recommended ad listings, based on the initial items searched for. Chen Xue goes into great detail in this recent article. EBay's Promoted Listings Standard (PLS) is a paid option for sellers. With one option, PLSIM, eBay's recommendation engines suggest sponsored items similar to something a potential buyer just clicked on. The PLSIM is paid on a CPA model (the seller pays eBay only when a sale is made) so that can be very motivating in terms of creating the most effective model to promote the best listings.

In 2019, the Santa Fe Independent School District in Texas ran a weeklong pilot program with the facial recognition firm AnyVision in its school hallways. With more than 5,000 student photos uploaded for the test run, AnyVision called the results "impressive" and expressed excitement at the results to school administrators. "Overall, we had over 164,000 detections the last 7 days running the pilot. We were able to detect students on multiple cameras and even detected one student 1100 times!" Taylor May, then a regional sales manager for AnyVision, said in an email to the school's administrators.

Branches of Co-op in the south of England have been using real-time facial recognition cameras to scan shoppers entering stores. This story originally appeared on WIRED UK. In total 18 shops from the Southern Co-op franchise have been using the technology in an effort to reduce shoplifting and abuse against staff. As a result of the trials, other regional Co-Op franchises are now believed to be trialing facial recognition systems. Use of facial recognition by police forces has been controversial, with the Court of Appeal ruling parts of its use to be unlawful earlier this year.