NSW
Govt - Counter Terrorism Strategy
The
Iema government has sealed a $25 million deal to install facial
recognition cameras to 2000 NSW government buses. The contract
has been awarded to Johnsons Controls Australia.
What are the implications of
this technology?
A facial recognition system is a computer-driven application
for automatically identifying a person from a digital image.
It does that by comparing selected facial features in the
live image and a facial database. This means that the NSW
government are looking at comparing the scanned faces of NSW
bus commuters with that of their police databases to try and
identify the whereabouts and actions of potential terrorists.
Has it worked in the past?
On the 3rd January 2002, The Police of Tampa Florida USA determined
that , "Face-Recognition Technology, utilised on and
off for the past 18 months, revealed Poor Performance."
A study by the counsel for American Civil Liberties Union
found that several government studies, including a National
Institute for Standards in Technology [report], found that
facial recognition technology has a high number of false negatives.
The study found that after faces were inserted into a database
for 18 months, 43 percent of all scans turned up false negatives.
(A false negative implies something exists that was not present).
Who is Johnson Controls Australia?
Johnson Controls Australia is an organization owned by Johnson
Controls Incorporated, a US based conglomerate.
In Summary
Facial Recognition Teceen tested technology has been in the
US by government agencies and proved to be unsuccessful in
increasing public safety. The techonolgy is expensive and
ineffective.
Even if it were 100% effective in identifying ‘terrorists’
how would this technology prevent the actions of the person
boarding the bus with a detonating device?
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