Facial recognition cameras too racially biased to use at Notting Hill carnival, say campaigners | Police

The MET Commissioner should scrap plans for the provision of the Live face awareness (LFR) the next weekend Notting Hill Carnival Since the technology is confused with “racist prejudices” and is subject to a legal challenge, 11 bourgeois freedom and anti-racist groups have requested.

A letter sent to Mark Rowley warns that the use of immediate facial adaptation cameras at an event that celebrates the African-Caribbean community “only intensify the concerns about the argument and racial discrimination in their strength”.

The Runnyede Trust, Liberty, Big Brother Watch, Racing On the agenda and human rights watch are among those who claim that the technology is “less precise for women and people with color”.

The demand is only a few days after the ministers have increased the use of vans with facial recognition technology for nine forces in England and Wales.

The MET said last month It would use specially assembled cameras for entries and outputs of the two-day event in West London. Up to 2 million people visit every year on the second largest street festival in the world, which takes place on August Bank Holiday Weekend.

In the letter seen by The Guardian, the signatories say: “The decision to use LFR at Notting Hill Carnival is wrongly aimed at the community to celebrate the carnival.

“The mead was racist by institutionally racist Baroness Casey's independent evaluation Trust in the MET was badly damaged by discriminatory police work.

“The Targeting of Notting Hill Carnival with the Live facial recognition technology only exacerbates the concerns about abuse of state power and racial discrimination within their strength.”

In the letter it says that the anti-knife activist Shaun Thompson, since the Met plan from Notting Hill, has announced a high court challenge. Thompson, a black British man, was incorrectly identified as a criminal, held by the police, and was then directed by the officials after his fingerprints.

“Mr. Thompson returned from volunteer work with street fathers, an organization for Advocacy and anti-violence community when he was surrounded by civil servants and held up for half an hour. He compared the discriminatory effects of LFR to” search steroids “, says the letter.

Activists claim that the police may “regulate” their use of the technology themselves. In the past, officers have used an environment that then disproportionately identified black people.

In an independent report by the public company, the National Physical Laboratory showed that the LFR technology of the MET for women and people with colors that are used in certain environments is less precise.

The author of the report, Dr. Tony Mansfield admitted that “when the system is operated at low and simple threshold values, the system combines a tendency against black men and women”. The police are not legally obliged to carry out the technology in higher environments, the letter says.

In 2018, a researcher came to the conclusion with Media Lab in the USA that software made by three companies made mistakes in 21% to 35% of cases for darker women. In contrast, the error rate for light -skinned men was less than 1%.

The other signatories are senior numbers in Privacy Watch, Privacy International, Race Equality First, Open Rights Group, Access Now, Stopwatch and Statewatch.

In the past month, the MET said that the cameras were used to approach the carnival “outside the borders of the event” to help the officials to identify and intercept people who pose a risk of public security.

The MET said that it would only use the technology in environments that show no racist prejudices to discover people for the most serious crimes such as knife crime and sexual assault.

However, the bourgeois freedom groups were dismayed that the technology was previously used by the police in Wales to aim for ticket touts.

Around 7,000 civil servants and employees are deployed every day of the carnival, said the Met.

LFR cameras about the approach of the carnival will search for people who are missing as missing and people who are subject to the prevention of sexual damage, the police said. The screening arches are used to the busiest entry points where stop-and-search powers are used.

The event is still managed by the community, but high -ranking politicians have expressed concerns about their security, which is led to the demands that it should be moved to Hyde Park or to prevent swarms on narrow streets.

Yvette Cooper, the Interior Minister, said last week that she would create a new legal framework for the use of LFR. “Face recognition is used in a targeted manner to identify sex offenders, or the people who are sought for the most serious crimes the police did not find,” she said.

The police from Met and South Wales tested the technology. The MET said that she had made 580 arrests with LFR for crimes, including rape, domestic abuse, knife crime, serious bodily harm and robbery, including 52 registered sex offenders who were arrested due to violation of their conditions.

The deputy deputy commissioner Matt Ward, who is responsible for the police company for carnival this year, said that the troop was still aware that there is still “misunderstandings” about the use of live face recognition in black and other ethnic minority communities.

“It is correct that we best use the available technology to support the civil servants to do their work more effectively. That is why we will use LFR cameras for the approach for and from the carnival outside the boundaries of the event. Live facial recognition has been a reliable and effective tool.

“Independent tests of the national physical laboratory showed that the deputies on the thresholds are precisely and balanced in terms of ethnicity and gender. However, we know that there are still misunderstandings about the use, especially in black and other ethnic minorities.”