It’s 1984 all over again:
A new camera technology from Hitachi Hokusai Electric can scan days of camera footage instantly, and find any face which has EVER walked past it.
Its makers boast that it can scan 36 million faces per second.
The technology raises the spectre of governments – or other organisations – being able to ‘find’ anyone instantly simply using a passport photo or a Facebook profile.
The software from Hitachi Hokusai electric can scan through 36 million faces a second looking for its ‘target’. The software can scan through days of CCTV footage almost instantly
The ‘trick’ is that the camera ‘processes’ faces as it records, so that all faces which pass in front of it are recorded and stored instantly.
Faces are stored as a searchable ‘biometric’ record, storing the unique
When the police – or anyone else – want to search for a particular individual, they’re searching through a gallery of pre-indexed faces, rather than a messy library of footage.
‘We think this system is suitable for customers that have a relatively large-scale surveillance system, such as railways, power companies, law enforcement, and large stores,’ says the company.
via Daily Mail.
This is more than a little troubling. Someone get the ACLU on the phone.