London is estimated to be one of the most monitored cities on the planet, with some 420,000 closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras in operation distributed throughout the city. To make a comparison, Washington, the capital of the United States and a place also hypervigilated for obvious reasons, only has about 30,000.
Since the beginning of the year the London Metropolitan Police have begun to combine all these ‘eyes’ scattered around the British capital with a new real-time facial recognition system with which it can easily identify its citizens . This has also started to be tested in other parts of the UK.
London police say facial recognition technology makes it much easier for them to track suspects and find people who are in search and capture.
Obviously, the introduction of this system has not been well received by many citizens who see it as another attack on their freedom. Among them is a group of artists called The Dazzle Club , which is made up of four women.
As a protest, since last year, once a month they decide to go for a walk in total silence with their faces painted with asymmetric shapes to, theoretically, outwit technology. For their marches, which last about an hour, they use a make-up that they have called ‘ CV Dazzle ‘,
“Cameras with facial recognition pick up the main features of your face. So the idea is to use different geometric shapes and different colors, light and shadows, to make these features abstract ”, they explain. However, they know if, for sure, their method is effective so that artificial intelligence does not identify them.
Walks slowed down by the coronavirus
The promoters of the initiative, which surely are not so easily recognized by the cameras, do arouse interest and draw the attention of the people who come across them. Some have even asked them if they belong to some kind of tribe or special ethnic group.
The group questions that the facial recognition system is actually being used for what the authorities say they are using it. “What are they really doing with the data they are collecting? They say that it is for security reasons and preventive surveillance , however, we have no evidence that what they are actually using it for works ”, they criticize.
Due to the coronavirus crisis and the confinement that the British are also carrying out, The Dazzle Club’s walk in March has been canceled and replaced by a streaming broadcast with readings, songs and debates, according to the BBC.
If London was already a city watched by cameras, now it is more so, since the police and the authorities are ensuring that the citizens of the city stay at home in order to avoid contagion.
If you want to know more about The Dazzle Club or see what their walks used to be before the quarantines, you can take a look on their Instagram account.
