UK mayor contemplates using face recognition to catch litterbugs

In an interview with the Bristol Live Mayor Marvin Rees said that Bristol City Council’s facial recognition technology could probably track everybody in city as he revealed he wanted to get more aggressive on littering.

The Mayor has pledged to crack down on littering, spitting, graffiti, illegal waste dumping, postering and dog fouling while in office and city council has hired civil enforcement officers to ticket offenders.

“I’m more than happy to look at anything we can do to be more robust and effective at catching people,” said Rees. “We walk a tightrope with this, our control centre has phenomenal technology – face recognition stuff – and it’s phenomenally effective, we could probably track everybody in the city.”

Rees added that he was not sure “if it’s a route we want to go down” and there could be legal and moral issues around it.

In May the UK Information Commissioner warned that public use of facial recognition technology by government and police could spur legal action.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  privacy  |  surveillance  |  UK