Whenever I use the e-Passport gates they can never recognise me.

And that's with me saying "I am this person", "I look like this" (by supplying my passport) and then it being in specially-chosen lighting conditions on a dedicated device.

So, honestly... go for it. If it works, maybe sell the tech back to the airports.

I suspect, however, that it will generate so many false-positives with a database the size of the UK passport database that it will be basically worthless and result in a bunch of wrongful arrests.

And can probably be fooled by a hat with a picture of a face on it.

I suspect, however, that it will generate so many false-positives with a database the size of the UK passport database that it will be basically worthless and result in a bunch of wrongful arrests.

You don't think this is about everyday crime reduction do you? As with digital IDs "to tackle illegal migration", the explanation doesn't fit and I reckon its purely about tracking anybody labelled a subversive.

It's a game of connect the dots: There's some interesting results if you do that.

Yes, increased facial recognition, connected to Digital ID = surveillance state Britain. Much easier to track the movement of people and know who they are.

Here's another fun game of joining dots: The Online Safety Act, resulting in an increase in VPN usage. So ban VPN's? That's the answer, right?

Connect that to Work from Home trends. VPN's are needed for that. So ban VPN's = Banning Work from Home and Hybrid working?

Why? Well... (this one's fun, so enjoy the ride...)

With more workers opting to work from home, businesses are seeing fewer 'bums in seats' meaning they don't need such a large office space to work out from. So, to save money, they either surrender floorspace, or they move to smaller premises, and reduce costs. So who moves into the old office? No one 'cause more and more businesses are doing the same thing, meaning there's less demand for office space.

That now impacts the Landlords: They're not renting out as much floorspace of their buildings. This leads to a reduction in investment. Meaning the Wealthy property owners have just taken a massive hit to their income.

Now, a bit of a jump: Wealthy people back political parties. Wealthy people losing wealth stop backing political parties. Political parties don't like having their funding reduced.

At the same time, those empty properties aren't bringing in as much money. That means reduced funding to the government. One might even say it's a 'black hole'.

So, banning VPN's = Reduction of WFH = Increased Bums in Seats in offices = increased demand for office space = increased taxes from business premises / increased wealth for the property owners/investors and also increased income to maintenance and security firms = further increase in taxes to the government.

All at the cost of increased road usage (more tax!) at the cost to the worker.

I know: Sounds like a conspiracy theory, right? But it's the fun of joining dots and linking different things together to see if there's a pattern.

So back to facial recognition and digital ID's: There's certainly potential links and the forming of a pattern, and I can see it working to track 'people of interest', with the spin that those would be people who aren't in the country legally. Oh, and criminals. But in reality it's everyone, and it's what China does as part of it's social credit scoring: Anyone recorded to be in the vicinity of a 'person of interest' could quickly see their social credit score take a hit, even if it's pure chance. That's what this system is moving us towards: That's where conspiracy theorists might point a finger and cry foul. Question is: Is there a profit to be made (and there is - and not just by the firms involved with the tracking, but also the value of the data collected to marketing firms - and you know darn well the data will 'leak'... way too much money to be made from it for it not to).

Yes, I'm out of dried frog pills and I sympathise with Vimes now I don't drink any more...

You're missing pensioners where their pension funds decided to invest in property thinking it was a safe investment. Pensioners are also a group of people who can be easily motivated to vote in elections.

Nope - I was looking at a 'join the dots' to see what the pattern might be.

Pensioners who invest in property generally don't invest in business properties aka office space. Pension funds might, but that's not the pensioners.

However, the people who do own those business properties tend to be rather wealthy, and they tend to donate towards political parties to gain favour and so they can influence policy: That's the dot I'm connecting here.

But it's just an exercise: A way to show how things can connect, and how different policies can interact - risk analysis if you like. That then brings in a question of how someone might benefit from such coincidences, and THAT then brings in the conspiracy theory: Are these things intentional or just a happy coincidence.

And while out for my lunchtime walk (when I tend to mull over random things) this thought popped up: Facial recognition/Digital ID connects to the Age Verification of the Online Safety Act. You're providing identification or a face scan, which would lean into facial recognition and hence it would add to the surveillance capacity of the system if they were joined up, meaning it looks even MORE like it's building into a social credit scoring system - The Government can decree sites are 'dangerous' to youth, so need age verification allowing them to monitor who is accessing those sites and can then track those people as they go about their daily lives, and note who they meet with, to track those people and see what age verified sites THEY are visiting... joining dots to get patterns which will then be put through AI to determine how much of a risk you are, assign that social credit score and impose sanctions against you without you even realising what you're supposed to have done.

Lots of dots to connect. Interesting patterns formed. Probably unintended but we're talking Governments: They like spying on people and meddling with their lives.

jpennycook - just realised you'd said pensioners through their pension fund managers - they're investors and if property investment isn't providing a decent return, they'll move that investment elsewhere.

So the impact is still the reduction of value of the properties (in this instance through a reduction of investment) which means a reduction in revenue for the government. Perhaps not so much for the political parties, but it's still something to consider.

One note: This is actually happening and has been for a while. It's only one part of a much larger picture, so may seem to be marginal in impact but it is there.

I think it's simpler than that, I think it's some mummy manager who takes the view that the means justify the need to keep everyone SAFE and keep track of all these naughty people who make things horrid for the rest of us. To get control over and keep track of all these "sick, sick sick sick weirdos" looking at all this "sick sick sick disgusting filth", which makes them feel "queasy".

Where people are jealous of their brilliance and they will thank them for it later, have to be cruel to be kind, nothing to hide nothing to fear.

Etc etc smooth brain type thinking, where the only tool in their mental toolbox is treating everyone like toddlers and applying an authoritarian,.oppressive, controlling punitive schema.

That in their head if we joined up all this information and knew where everyone is and what everyone is doing then all the women and children in the country could be kept safe from all the (in their panicked delusional minds) "millions and billions of creepy, perverted, dangerous, sick, predatory men" while then lashing out with "I'm NOT saying ALL men do it but if you all have to give up a bit of liberty to stop the others then I won't shed a tear over it"

Oh, you're probably right: The other risk is always that people don't consider the consequences of these policies, especially where they interact with other things, such as other policies, but also cultural expectations.

Classic example can be seen in the Chinese 'One child' policy. Great in theory, but add in that a SON is expected to look after their parents (but not the parents of their wife) and you have the beginnings of a problem: Couples wanting sons not daughters, can only have one, find they're expecting the other, so arrange for a 'miscarriage' to reset the child count. End result: China had more boys than girls meaning most guys couldn't find girlfriends/wives.

All because the Chinese government didn't consider what the impact of a one child policy would have when taken in conjunction with the established cultural expectations put on the child.

The trouble is in spotting these potential issues BEFORE they become an issue. Can't do that without putting things together to see how they might fit :p

And don't forget other tools in Sir Kier Stasi's inventory: Jury-free trials, now there's a boon for the would be big state control freak! And the expanded use of ANPR, etc etc

it's the fun of joining dots and linking different things together to see if there's a pattern

This is not really linking things. You're focusing on an extremely narrow aspect of the economy: office real estate. It's not a particularly prominent area of investment for big political donors. It's low-risk commodity investment. Cheap buildings on land which has little down-side risk. The big donors are doing more interesting risky things which government policy could significantly impact if backs were scratched. The want deregulation and multi-billion pound government contracts. You don't benefit from those if you own a few business parks, and you're not making enough money to buy a peerage either.

A proper economist - which the Treasury has a couple of - would label *productive* working-from-home as economically beneficial because it reduces the need for capital-intensive office space and allows land, buildings and construction resources to be reallocated to other parts of the economy where it's sorely needed. Such as housing. So that people can have a home to work from.

In reality business, and therefore the government also fret that WFH leads to lower productivity because people are more likely arse around during work hours when they're in the comfort of their own home with all it's homely distractions. Without digging into that debate too deeply, perhaps they hope AV helps with that problem.. (as long as we're trying to join the dots).

We don't really need conspiracy theories to hate surveillance though: The problem is that even if the government has pure intentions now , and that may well be the case, the surveillance powers will get abused shortly down the line. It always happens.

Well, I kept it simple: Just a few dots to join to see how they might influence each other. Like I said: It's an exercise and you always start small to see how things can interact, and then you might build out from there.

The conspiracy aspect covers if it's intentional or not. Mostly it's not, but where it is: Who benefits. Then project on to see why. Can be rather flimsy, but sometimes it's amusing and occasionally it can expose a potential plot. Just something to be aware of and maybe keep an eye on.

And no, we don't need conspiracy theories to hate surveillance: The Government is supposed to represent the people, so why do they need to watch us? They are ours to command, not the other way around. And yes, as pure as the intent might be now, it won't be in a few years time. After all: With power comes responsibility as power corrupts through the temptation to misuse it. The more power? The worse the risk.

The Government is supposed to represent the people, so why do they need to watch us? They are ours to command, not the other way around

Indeed, but we the people keep electing governments who want to be seen to be tough on crime. The sad reality is most people are happy to accept a little bit of 'so-called' miscarriage of justice and unsafe conviction because these suspects wouldn't end up in court, or in the police facial recognition database, in the first place if they weren't guilty, would they? And even if they're not guilty, allowing society to acknowledge that would involve orders of magnitude more actual criminals circumventing justice. Better to bake the cake while breaking some innocent eggs.

It pains me to say it but sometimes the truly corrupting powerful influence is the electorate ourselves. The Justice Secretary spoke eloquently in favour of jury trial but a few years ago. The pressures of pleasing the populous and their desire for both financial efficiency, and swift revenge have changed his mind.

Either "cross dept working" will open the door to "troublemakers" or those who (to quote a cop) "skirt the law" aka innocent can be "dealt' with i.e. delaying or witholding state pension payments, having your smart meter "accidentally".turned off or turned off and the utility ordered under the latest addition to RIPA (losing track of how many there have been since 2k) to shut off your gas and electricity and banned from declaring why.

Those for example who need welfare support find their payments are cut off / dragged in for "meetings" more akin to interrogations after facial recognition spots them on a bus / out for a walk / meeting with a friend or family member. Already the DWP treats ALL claimants akin to convicted criminals, treating them as guilty where the DWP serve as police, prosecutor, judge and jury, where they bristle at being overriden by tribunals of independent judges (and their training manuals for "assessors" bear this out where the wording is heavily laden with snark about tribunal and judicial decisions that have gone against them, manual even includes a section about embarrassing information - that's not (as most folk would think) information about the claimant that could be embarrassing to them (for example medical information like incontinence), no it's information that could be embarrassing to the DWP - basically avoid putting stuff in writing as much as possible so no records exist, don't put prejudicial /.discriminatory comments in writing where they might come to light / be subject to FOI enquiries (with the implications to just make them verbally)

Yup, I have to remove my glasses for airport face recognition to work. And thats for HD cameras in ideal conditions and state of the art software. How are plods face recognition tech any better?

Compare all passport photos against each other to check for duplicates.

That should could the system busy for a while...

Roughly 2,530,089,949,700,000 pairs. Should be a good enough sample for a solid false positive assessment, the result of which will be buried with extreme prejudice.

about 1300 arrests but how many of the suspects went to court and were found guilty??

Another example of mission creep, with more to come I expect.

Twats

about 1300 arrests but how many of the suspects went to court and were found guilty??

More can be found guilty with the abolition of jury trials. Then facial recognition will make it easier to arrest people who've been naughty on social media and demonstrated WrongThink. Other future crimes might include printing anti-panicdemic masks with someone elses nose, mouth, chin and jawline on them.

Scramble Suit (A Scanner Darkly, Philip K. Dick for the uneducated philistines amongst you...)

That is all...

are you suggesting that Substance D has escaped containment?

Have you not seen all those little blue flowers quietly growing under the solar farms?...

Setup facial recognition for MPs and members of the Lords.

If system fails to recognise the individual, then they're not getting in. If it's a Wednesday and the PM is refused entry - tough. PM's questions will have to proceed without him.

Repeated attempts will be responded to as a malicious actor attempting impersonation and will be tasered and taken to a holding cell.

Correction

Repeated [failed] attempts.

Though, no harm in simulating random failure and zapping our elected and unelected representatives occasionally to check the taser is working

During lockdown, as well as glow-in-the-dark face coverings from DNA Lounge, I also got some adversarial face coverings with multiple mouths and eyes to go over my proper face masks. I wonder if they really work?

If by “work” you mean “get yourself put on a list” then they most certainly do…

Starmers 1984

This started under the Tories.

They are all power crazy c***s

They behave like the Chinese government, we treat them as we would the Chinese government.

1984 IngSoc (English Socialism). It was a warning to us all.

Brave New World by Aldus Huxley, and later he goes into more details about where he got his inspiration (from his brother Julian Huxley) in Brave New World Revisited.

is not the UK, it is a country called England and Wales. They couldn't think of anything better at the time.