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UK To Deploy Facial Recognition For Shoplifting Crackdown

Bruce66423 shares a report from The Guardian, with the caption: "The UK is hyperventilating about stories of shoplifting; though standing outside a shop and watching as a guy calmly gets off his bike, parks it, walks in and walks out with a pack of beer and cycles off -- and then seeing staff member...

So now it's throwing technical solutions at the problem..." From the report: The government is investing more than 55 million pounds in expanding facial recognition systems-- including vans that will scan crowded high streets -- as part of a renewed crackdown on shoplifting. The scheme was announced alongside plans for tougher punishments for serial or abusive shoplifters in England and Wales, including being forced to wear a tag to ensure they do not revisit the scene of their crime, under a new standalone criminal offense of assaulting a retail worker. It is completely absurd to inflict mass surveillance on the general public under the premise of fighting theft while police are failing to even turn up to 40% of violent shoplifting incidents or to properly investigate many more serious crimes."

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