Has anyone here actually read the article? As far as I can tell, facial recognition is being increased in availability, but it was already in use.

Every police force in the country will be able to use live facial recognition vans, with the number of vans set to rise from ten to 50.

It’s also worth noting that in the UK for a very long time now any data that is not E2EE can be seized by the government from companies without the consent of their users if a warrant is issued. That’s obviously bad but nothing new.

It sounds like what’s actually new here is that the police is becoming more centralised and organised. Instead of a lot of smaller departments in local areas with lack of expertise, more centralised organisations will do the policing.

The article covers some pros and cons from different people’s perspectives.

• There might end up being more policing in cities and less in rural areas.
• There might be some downsizing of policies forces
• Police forces may be less accountable as they grow.
• Police forces believe they will be better equipped to tackle cybercrime.

Overall, to me, this seems like a generally negative move. I don’t want the police to spy on people, and I want them to be more knowledgeable about their local area and more accountable to their people. It does look like there might be more surveillance, and that’s bad too.

Please read don’t take headlines for granted.