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Britain’s obsession with surveillance is reaching new heights. Several of the UK’s largest retailers have quietly installed facial recognition checkpoints on their doorways and inside their shops. It means that automated identity checks are taking place on our high streets without customers even being aware of it.
You won’t be informed if your photo is taken and added to a watchlist, and no police report is required
The cameras look like any other CCTV cameras, except they take a biometric scan of every customer’s face, like at a passport e-gate. The facial recognition scans are then compared against a private database run by the software company Facewatch. The database is populated by various shops’ CCTV images of people security staff think may be involved in ‘crime or disorder’. You won’t be informed if your photo is taken and added to a watchlist; neither is a police report required for your face to be added.
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