
Police fine pedestrian for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face - mlmartin
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7036141/Police-fine-pedestrian-90-facial-recognition-camera-row.html
======
StavrosK
> The force had put out a statement saying “anyone who declines to be scanned
> will not necessarily be viewed as suspicious”.

That's why it's called "erosion of rights" and not "outright nullification of
rights". Unfortunately, it works, and it's entirely unsurprising that face
surveillance will become normalized.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
There's a reason they're doing it in London first. In a wealthy city like
London you can get away with going full "law and order" because the ratio of
rich to poor is better (i.e more rich people) and the rich generally view this
as no threat to them. Then once it's normalized they roll it out to Liverpool,
Belfast and everywhere else that the poors are less under the thumb of the
government.

You see this in the US. Boston, DC, New York, etc are littered with
surveillance cameras and ALPRs. Once it's normalized they'll roll it out to
places like New Bedford, Norlfolk and Buffalo and all the other places where
the government (as an organization, not as individuals) feels its respected
less.

~~~
arethuza
If there is one place where the authorities might take a bit of care around
implementing new surveillance technologies you would hope it would be Belfast.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
That's basically what I was thinking. I figure as soon as the system is
sufficiently "mature" they'll use it there.

I hope they totally screw it up and touch off the kind of "civil unrest" that
you need in order to remind the government that people have rights.

------
bArray
This makes me very sad for many reasons:

* People are losing their freedom of privacy in the name of safety and most accept it. Many are likely unaware at this stage of the trade-off.

* One activist was in presence by happen chance, otherwise this likely would have gone unreported.

* The database _currently_ only keeps peoples data for 30 days. When the UK leaves the EU, this will likely be extended. China has already experienced multiple data breaches.

* It's unclear what data is kept and deleted, I suspect that metadata may be retained indefinitely.

* The money being spent on these systems could be spent getting more officers on the ground. I have no doubt they are sinking millions of pounds into this project.

* The police initially started testing this system illegally, there were no repercussions.

* The majority of people being arrested as a result of this technology are probably not the worst people in society. I believe this will be used to disproportionately target poorer people and petty crimes.

* Telling an officer to "fuck off" or "piss off" is not a crime. It's not an offense to be rude and you certainly shouldn't have to "Wind your neck in" in fear of a public servant.

~~~
timthorn
> Telling an officer to "fuck off" or "piss off" is not a crime. It's not an
> offense to be rude and you certainly shouldn't have to "Wind your neck in"
> in fear of a public servant.

Yes it is: From the Public Order Act 1986
([http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64))

A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment,
alarm or distress, he—

(a)uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly
behaviour, or

(b)displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is
threatening, abusive or insulting,

thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress.

~~~
wlkr
There are exceptions for police officers though, who are expected to tolerate
some swearing. Relevant cases are listed on Wikipedia.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_5_Public_Order_Act_198...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_5_Public_Order_Act_1986#Police_officers)

~~~
geodel
Well it is just like I learn for driving test that one should remain calm if
other driver jumps red light, cut him off or honks unnecessarily. It does not
mean aggressor is right, just that one should try de-escalate the situation.

------
Angostura
From the Independent coverage:

> The force had put out a statement saying “anyone who declines to be scanned
> will not necessarily be viewed as suspicious”. However, witnesses said
> several people were stopped after covering their faces or pulling up hoods.

> “The guy told them to p __* off and then they gave him the £90 public order
> fine for swearing,” Ms Carlo added. “He was really angry.”

I live close to Romford, and I'm quite tempted to wander past with my face
obscured and then politely decline if asked to be photographed.

Of course, I'm white, middle class and middle aged, so I probably wont be
stopped.

~~~
petercooper
_“The guy told them to p_ off and then they gave him the £90 public order fine
for swearing,”*

This is a common use of laws in the United Kingdom. They put lots of laws on
the books around trivial things that they almost never enforce on their own,
but then which officers arbitrarily use in "convenient" situations like this.
The average person swearing in the street will not be accosted, someone
arguing with a cop who wants to make a point will.

~~~
kevin_b_er
This is called selective enforcement and is part of the erosion of the rule of
law in the UK. When you have mountains of laws such that most people are
always violating them, you can target anyone you don't like. This leads to
abuse of power and is formative in the transformation of police from those
that uphold the law to thugs. The thugs decide when to punish on whim.

------
upofadown
We haven't really even come to terms with the false positive rate associated
with just looking at people. When law enforcement wants to check ID all they
have to do is say they thought you looked like someone. The high rate of false
positives is a feature not a bug. You could set up an empty box with a lens
drawn on it with a motion detector aimed to go off 4% of the time and the
result would be almost as useful to law enforcement as a facial detection
system that actual did something. The facial detection just increases the
efficiency of the "papers please" checkpoint.

------
shawabawa3
Slight correction: It seems he wasn't exactly fined for hiding his face.
Police asked him to uncover his face and he told them to "piss off", for which
he was fined.

~~~
bArray
You'll find in the UK that it's quite common practice to use the vagueness in
the law to pin a different charge on somebody. Being rude to a police officer
isn't a chargeable offense, yet it'll be treated as such. The police have no
requirement or training available to actually understand the nuances of the
law, nor are they updated when the law changes. The British police is mostly
under-trained and under-funded, especially as you break out of the London
bubble.

One of the major issues with UK law is it's vagueness and openness to
interpretation, which is all of course by design. You don't tend to notice
erosion until the ground beneath you collapses.

~~~
marme
In the US you would just get charged with resisting arrest. This is what
happens when they ask for your ID and you refuse to give it to them. You wont
be convicted but the fact that you can be arrested for resisting arrest
without committing any crime is a problem

------
telesilla
In a science fiction world, those of us who cared about privacy would start
wearing make-up (until it was banned):

[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/makeu...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/makeup/374929/)

We don't do this en masse now because "The very thing that makes you invisible
to computers makes you glaringly obvious to other humans"

~~~
wnkrshm
I wonder, what about methods that do not obstruct human vision but do obstruct
the camera? Like a faceshield, transparent mask or bag that you can wear (like
a transparent raincoat hood) but one that has scattering features for near IR
light that will hide your face to cameras.

Or laser dazzlers that look for lenses. Both will probably be quickly banned
as criminal tools (like 'hacking tools' are in some nations).

You could also project time-dependent illumination patterns on your own face,
throwing off algorithms.

~~~
telesilla
I think we need temporary tattoos: they should dissolve over a few days, so
you can new ones and avoid re-detection, but not be able to be "taken off" by
police wishing to scan you. Something that is worn would be considered as
disobedience, like the shirt the man in the article pulled over this face.

We just need one of the Kardashians to make it fashionable and then it's all
over for face detection.

------
ChuckNorris89
How do they enforce this on people wearing hijabs or other religios clothing
that covers the face?

~~~
Mediterraneo10
Hijabs do not cover the face. A niqab or burqa would, but the former are very
rare in the West, and the latter virtually nonexist.

~~~
781
Maybe in the countryside. Go to any West EU capital and you'll see planty of
niqabs and burqas.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
> you'll see plenty of ... burqas

No, you won’t. The burqa is extremely rare in Western Europe. This is pointed
out whenever political parties propose a burqa ban: a country would be banning
something that isn’t even a significant thing there. IIRC, the total number of
burqa wearers in all of France, for example, does not exceed 300.

As for niqabs, you do see one from time to time, but they certainly aren’t
common against the total Muslim population, and when you do, it may be that
the wearers are visitors from e.g. the Gulf states and not locals.

~~~
781
I see a burqa weekly and 10+ niqabs every day, and the area that I live is not
what you would call a "muslim zone". It's certainly not a tourist zone, so
unlikely to be non-locals.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
At this point I can only assume that you are not operating with any standard
scholarly definition of the word "burqa". There are different terms for the
various modesty garments from the Muslim world for a reason.

~~~
whenchamenia
He just used the terms correctly. Is your response to losing an argument to
gaslight their vocabulary? That is not very sporting, even for hn.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
How do you know he is using the term correctly? Seeing burqas regularly in
Western Europe would be so extraordinary a thing, that assuming that he is
using the term incorrectly is kinder than the other conclusion that could be
drawn about his claim. From the downvoting of his posts, others too notice
something is off.

~~~
781
I know very well what a burqa is. It's a weekly sight. I wouldn't call that
extraordinary. I see it way more often than a kippah

[https://www.novinite.com/media/inpictures/201003/photo_veryb...](https://www.novinite.com/media/inpictures/201003/photo_verybig_2908.jpg)

------
cbovis
Very interested to understand what sort of metadata is being stored from these
cameras. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the cameras are being
used to build a database of individual’s movements, whether deliberate or as a
side effect of logging.

Any more information on this from a better source than the DM?

~~~
cbovis
Did a little more digging around this and discovered
[https://www.met.police.uk/live-facial-recognition-
trial/](https://www.met.police.uk/live-facial-recognition-trial/) through
Reddit.

“Live Facial Recognition uses NEC’s NeoFace technology to analyse images of
the faces of people on the watch list. It measures the structure of each face,
including distance between eyes, nose, mouth and jaw to create facial data.

The system detects a face, creates a digital version of it and searches it
against the watch list; where it makes a match it sends an alert to an officer
on the scene.

The officer compares the camera image and the watch list image and decides
whether to stop and speak to the person. We always explain why we’ve stopped
someone; we also give them a leaflet that explains how they can contact us to
ask any questions afterwards.

The system will only keep faces matching the watch list, these are kept for 30
days, all others are deleted immediately. We delete all other data on the
watch list and the footage we record.”

------
pbhjpbhj
This was on BBC Click, which is on YouTube (for me, I'm in UK though). A good
programme overall.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFyBpcbH9A](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFyBpcbH9A)

They give stats and details.

It may not be the same incident as the OP, but it sounds broadly similar and
the programme fleshes out the general situation well.

Edit: Actually it is the same guy. The issue and provision of the fine, etc.,
it's on the show.

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YeGoblynQueenne
Is there another source for this? I don't even want to visit the Mail's
website, let alone read whatever misrepresentation of what actually transpired
that they have put down in their article.

~~~
richrichardsson
As someone also not interested in giving the Daily Fail/Heil any traffic what-
so-ever, I found this : [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/facial-
recogniti...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/facial-recognition-
cameras-technology-london-trial-met-police-face-cover-man-fined-a8756936.html)

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
Cheers.

------
moron4hire
>> After being pulled aside, the man told police: 'If I want to cover me face,
I'll cover me face. Don't push me over when I'm walking down the street.'

Jesus, it's a good thing cops in London don't have guns. Can't imagine how
this would have ended in one of the whitebread suburbs here in the US with our
'roided-out school-yard-bullies-turned-pro.

------
stunt
Well said that we are the last free generation.

It so weird how much of our freedom and privacy we are giving away. People
used to fight for these stuff.

And then you would think how far this can go in near future if this is just
the beginning.

After all, all these fear and mixed feelings about security and conflicts are
caused by a long chain of reactions and consequences of bad decisions
governments are making themselves around the world. And it is sad that normal
people end up losing their privacy more than responsible ones do.

It requires a fundamental strategy change that is not going to happen in
reality. I wonder what kind of destructive side effects it will have for the
future generations specially to the culture.

------
vixen99
For those who prefer not to go to the Daily Mail directly:

"Camera cross-checked photos of faces of passers-by against wanted database.
One man covered face before officers stopped him and took his picture anyway.
He was fined £90 at scene in Romford by police who arrested three other people
Police say they know of human rights concerns but want to make London safer"

~~~
willyt
Technically he was fined for swearing at the police, not for covering his
face. If he had said nothing he would not have been fined but might have been
searched as the police have the power to stop and search anyone who they have
reasonable cause to suspect is acting suspiciously.

~~~
kwhitefoot
But they didn't have reasonable cause.

~~~
sleepychu
Actually in England they don't need reasonable grounds.

[https://www.gov.uk/police-powers-to-stop-and-search-your-
rig...](https://www.gov.uk/police-powers-to-stop-and-search-your-rights)

> You can only be stopped and searched without reasonable grounds if it has
> been approved by a senior police officer.

This can happen if it is suspected that:

    
    
        serious violence could take place
        you’re carrying a weapon or have used one
        you’re in a specific location or area

~~~
Zak
> _you’re in a specific location or area_

Are the specific locations this applies to defined in law, or can a senior
police officer just say "this neighborhood has a lot of criminals; search
everyone"?

~~~
sleepychu
Bit of a mix, seems possible to make justification for an entire city. [1]

[1] -
[https://twitter.com/brumpolice/status/1100765101156634624](https://twitter.com/brumpolice/status/1100765101156634624)

~~~
Zak
That's... even worse than I feared, and most of the responses to the tweet are
supportive.

------
marcod
Another report [https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/16/moment-man-fined-90-hiding-
fa...](https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/16/moment-man-fined-90-hiding-face-police-
facial-recognition-cameras-9571463/) It's a little bit like saying "If she
doesn't want to be tossed into the water she must be a witch!"

------
bredren
I regularly see people going around with their faces covered in Portland. For
example, guy in dark clothes on a bmx bike riding down east bank esplanade.

I assume that these folks have warrants. But I am not aware of any deployed
facial recognition in Portland.

~~~
tasty_freeze
If they are doing it for that reason, that seems like a bad choice. That would
stand out even more obviously than had they worn a T-shirt that said "The
police are looking for me".

~~~
bredren
I thought the same but you still see it all the time.

------
coldcode
1984 was not intended to be a how-to manual.

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Zenst
I wonder if you could copyright your face and then use the law against the
law. DMCA takedowns etc etc.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
It's not an artistic work, and there are broad rights to images in public that
preclude you from making a work on your face to prevent imaging of it.

It's a nice idea but it would allow lots of law breaking of things worked that
way. Eg paint something on your car, now police can't capture you on speed
camera!!11one.

~~~
Zenst
Yes sadly that is the crux. Whilst the people do have concerns, those concerns
are shared for nefarious reasons by your criminally inclined.

Way things are going, how long until we have camera technology as CCTV that is
comparable to Holywood camera's - certainly the standard today is up there
with 80's offering.

Might even come a time when you can do a film in places like London without
needing any cameras as you can just ab-use the data protection act to get
copies of any footage your in and get all the camera angles and video you need
to edit into a film. Kinda doable now, though not all cameras are 4k and well
light area's. But certainly doable.

One interesting legal aspect about CCTV in the UK - the only camera's that are
allowed to record audio are the ones located outside police stations. Which is
reassuring as with mic-arrays - intrusion into privacy and indeed voice
recognition would be far greater than any CCTV/facial recognition. But that is
one to watch and keep an eye upon as I'm sure that will change/erode over
time.

------
TomK32
How good is this software if you just close one eye and make a grimace while
walking by?

------
teekert
Show your face, slave!

------
neiman
... and now his face is all over hackernews. Great.

------
sudoaza
Police state intensifies

------
pif
I personally don't see any issue with this.

If you want absolute privacy, than stay at home.

If you want absolute freedom, than go live somewhere where nobody else lives.

Society runs on compromises: your freedon to swing your fist ends where my
nose begins (and viceversa); your privacy ends where my safety is concerned
(and viceversa).

~~~
seieste
What’s your full name, phone number, and street address?

If you want privacy, then don’t post online.

~~~
wallace_f
He doesn't even have an Online Commenting License. A hefty fine under the
Against Hate Speech Act of 2022.

