Guess how many arrests police made after scanning over 8,000 Londoners' faces without their consent?

British police used facial recognition to scan more than 8,000 people's faces in one of London's busiest shopping districts, and it yielded far more false than correct positives.

As spotted by British privacy advocacy group Big Brother Watch, statistics released by London's Metropolitan Police show it deployed Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology on February 27 at Oxford Circus, a busy area in the center of London frequented by tourists and shoppers.

The figures show the police scanned roughly 8,600 people, and the technology threw up eight matches from its database of faces. Seven of these were false positives however, resulting in five incorrect "engagements." A spokesperson for the Met told Business Insider that in the case of these five "engagements" officers spoke to the individuals flagged and ascertained that they were not individuals wanted by the police.

Maddog wrote:Just government keeping you safe.  

Or paternalism.  

Ben Reilly wrote:

Maddog wrote:Just government keeping you safe.  

Or paternalism.  

Dude, here's how we're different. If a wasp gets into the house, we're both going to kill it -- but I'll use a rolled-up magazine, and you'll use an AK.

Ben Reilly wrote:

Maddog wrote:Just government keeping you safe.  

Or paternalism.  

Dude, here's how we're different. If a wasp gets into the house, we're both going to kill it -- but I'll use a rolled-up magazine, and you'll use an AK.

Vintage wrote:Why not encourage it to leave?

eddie wrote:

Vintage wrote:Why not encourage it to leave?

I would encourage it to leave certainly. I do kill spiders and flies though; spiders literally terrify me into killing them and flies just gross me out to the point of feeling nauseous.