
London Police ‘Super Recognizer’ Walks Beat with a Facebook of the Mind - snewman
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/world/europe/london-police-super-recognizer-walks-beat-with-a-facebook-of-the-mind.html
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funkysquid
It's interesting that they don't mention how/if they're avoiding false
positives. I don't doubt that some people have exceptional facial recognition
skills, but if they're given a face they haven't seen before, how likely are
they to match that face with someone they have seen? How do they know that
someone wearing a mask on a security camera is enough information for him to
actually make an accurate match?

I'm worried this might be another case of police over estimating how effective
something is (like hair DNA forensics) to make arrests, with innocent people
paying for it.

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robk
This really does seem plausible to me. Create a parallel construction scenario
and it seems a lot more public friendly when they abuse their powers.

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paulsutter
You're really on to something with parallel construction.

Using Palantir they can map all the celltower data, etc, to find people who
are present at the place and time of multiple crimes. But they don't want to
explain all this in court.

So they sit Constable Collins down with the video footage to parallel
reconstruct evidence for the jury. And the PR department then decides to turn
him into a super-hero with mythical powers, to further the cover.

That makes a lot more sense to me.

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pistoriusp
"Constable Collins carries a baton and pepper spray, but no gun." Police in
the UK aren't typically armed.

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EvilPopsicleDog
Exactly, this implied he'd elected not to carry a gun; most police in the UK
that carry guns are special armed units.

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TravisJamison
"WITH its estimated one million security cameras, London is pioneering a new
area of detection". - Insane, and scary.

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gaius
I'll tell you a true story a few years ago while I was supervising a training
session for divers at the swimming pool, someone broke into a some of our
lockers. He got away with phones, tablets, credit cards, cash. Stupid crime
because we can remote-brick devices now, cancel credit cards, and the money he
stole from my wallet was actually Mexican. Anyway, he was captured on CCTV
inside the building and outside, but all you can tell from the footage, that
the police showed me, was that he was a black guy about 6 feet tall, and
that's it. So when people worry about the surveillance state I just smirk.
None of it actually works in any useful way, it's all security theatre.

Oh, wait, it is useful for extorting motorists who stray into an unmarked "bus
lane", but that's about it.

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hahainternet
Allow me to also tell you a true story.

A woman was found stabbed to death outside her house, everyone who would have
any reason to mean her harm had a reliable alibi.

Until the CCTV footage was analysed properly, and a suspicious car was found
to have unique identifying marks. Further research of phone records revealed
that in fact her husband was the primary architect of her murder and had
orchestrated it with others.

CCTV was pivotal in detection and conviction. Nobody gives a shit about your
phone or your tablet. People's lives matter, and one murderer caught is worth
a thousand fines which would be overturned on appeal.

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noonespecial
_> People's lives matter, and one murderer caught is worth a thousand fines
which would be overturned on appeal._

You do know that these "appeals" aren't free, right? Or guaranteed. If you
happen to be of a paler complexion and of modest means, they can be had for
the low, low cost of merely your job and everything you have. If you happen to
be a poor minority, however...

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ctz
An appeal is free, merely filling in a form and waiting for the PCN
adjudicator to make a judgement.

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coldtea
> _Soft-spoken and gentle-mannered, Constable Collins carries a baton and
> pepper spray, but no gun. His weapon is his memory_

I don't like this journalistic BS trickery.

That he doesn't carry a gun is not some unique trait of him as implied here.

Most english policement DON'T carry guns (except in special units and
circumstances) -- something that a lot of the US-based NYT readership wont
know about.

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omginternets
If it makes you feel any better, damn-near everybody in the US knows that
English policemen don't carry guns. It's pretty much the first thing people
bring up when one mentions bobbies.

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coldtea
In what circles of the society? Among hackers, university educated people,
naturally curious, etc (and Pulp Fiction fans), sure. But there are vast
expanses of the population who don't know even more basic stuff and I would
argue those are the majority.

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lockes5hadow
"Computers are no match for super recognizers..."

Give it time.

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methehack
It's not really a competition. Yet. Anyway, I think you're missing the point.
There's a great mystery here. How can the human mind do this? "Facial
recognition software managed to identify one suspect of the 4,000 captured by
security cameras during the London riots. Constable Collins identified 180".
And dollars to donuts Constable Collins used a fraction of the energy too --
maybe even a just a donut's worth -- he is a copper after all.

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tedks
I'm sure his false positive rate is zero, and that he's never caused an
innocent person to be arrested or imprisoned. After all, he's in the top 1% on
a test designed by people from Harvard. Yes, Harvard. Thank the lord that once
a policeman's fingered a known criminal, a jury will never disagree with them.
I bet his conviction rate is stellar.

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PepeGomez
I doubt they arrest somebody just based on that.

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tedks
They named a person in the article based just on this police officer's word.
He might never be able to get a job again if this article stays on the first
page of google hits for his name. Who knows if he's the same person? Is there
anything else it could be based on?

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imaginenore
I wonder how you can even convict just on some CCTV footage of a masked man.
Do you just trust the "super recognizer"?

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chovietonline
London Police ‘Super Recognizer’ i think it is correct !

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blazespin
Super powers! That is so awesome.

