Facial Recognition Smartwatches To Be Used To Monitor Foreign Offenders In UK

Migrants who have been convicted of a criminal offense will be required to scan their faces up to five times a day using smartwatches installed with facial recognition technology under plans from the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. The Guardian reports: In May, the government awarded a contract to the British technology company Buddi Limited to deliver "non-fitted devices" to monitor "specific cohorts" as part of the Home Office Satellite Tracking Service. The scheme is due to be introduced from the autumn across the UK, at an initial cost of 6 million pounds. A Home Office data protection impact assessment (DPIA) from August 2021, obtained by the charity Privacy International through a freedom of information request, assessed the impact of the smartwatch technology before contracting a supplier. In the documents, seen by the Guardian, the Home Office says the scheme will involve "daily monitoring of individuals subject to immigration control," with the requirement to wear either a fitted ankle tag or a smartwatch, carried with them at all times.

A Home Office data protection impact assessment (DPIA) from August 2021, obtained by the charity Privacy International through a freedom of information request, assessed the impact of the smartwatch technology before contracting a supplier. In the documents, seen by the Guardian, the Home Office says the scheme will involve "daily monitoring of individuals subject to immigration control," with the requirement to wear either a fitted ankle tag or a smartwatch, carried with them at all times. Photographs taken using the smartwatches will be cross-checked against biometric facial images on Home Office systems and if the image verification fails, a check must be performed manually. The data will be shared with the Home Office, MoJ and the police, with Home Office officials adding: "The sharing of this data [to] police colleagues is not new."

The number of devices to be produced and the cost of each smartwatch was redacted in the contract and there is no mention of risk assessments to determine whether it is appropriate to monitor vulnerable or at-risk asylum seekers. The Home Office says the smartwatch scheme will be for foreign-national offenders who have been convicted of a criminal offense, rather than other groups, such as asylum seekers. However, it is expected that those obliged to wear the smartwatches will be subject to similar conditions to those fitted with GPS ankle tags, with references in the DPIA to curfews and inclusion and exclusion zones. Those who oppose the 24-hour surveillance of migrants say it breaches human rights and may have a detrimental impact on their health and wellbeing. Lucie Audibert, a lawyer and legal officer for Privacy International, said: "Facial recognition is known to be an imperfect and dangerous technology that tends to discriminate against people of color and marginalized communities. These 'innovations' in policing and surveillance are often driven by private companies, who profit from governments' race towards total surveillance and control of populations.

"Through their opaque technologies and algorithms, they facilitate government discrimination and human rights abuses without any accountability. No other country in Europe has deployed this dehumanizing and invasive technology against migrants."

Dupe

[Local ID10T]

Again?

Re:

[Frobnicator]

Yup, the last one is still at the bottom of the front page.

Re:

[codebase7]

Looks /. is preemptively taking photos of itself....

Great.

[dddux]

1984 here we come. Well, I'm listening to the music from 1986 right now, so maybe the whole society is regressing. Well, it is, judging by all the news.

Not all bad

[Roger W Moore]

It's not all bad. If looking at your smartphone or watch all the time makes you look like a petty criminal people perhaps people will do it much less.

The Tories...

[VeryFluffyBunny]

...can't help themselves. They're not doing it for security or public safety or even to save money. It's purely to be mean & nasty to people they don't approve of. The Tories have always been a bunch of corrupt, incompetent, xenophobic arseholes.

It will be supplied by the usual companies

[Growlley]

at vastly inflated pork prices and turn out all you have to do is put a picture of your own face in front of it to pass.

Foreign offenders?

[RUs1729]

UK nationals never offend then? The good ole' UK, managing to come across as Stalinist and xenophobic at the same time.

Pointless?

[McCovican]

Is it me, or is the only thing that this will *actually* monitor... is that the person's wrist is still attached to their body? Like, it won't do anything new to make sure they haven't removed their monitoring device - those already exist. It won't do anything new to make sure the person is within a specific place - those already exist. This really just feels like the Tories creating a non-problem to solve so that they can funnel money to their donors in the private sector. Again. Also, to be needlessly c

What's the legal context?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'm a bit puzzled by the premise here: 24/7 location tracking, biometrics, long-term data retention seems disproportionate(both in terms of justice and in terms of cost) for the sorts of lightweight offenses that just get you a fine or a short suspended sentence and don't make having you back out in public seem like a problem; while the sorts of offenses that would make that kind of intrusive surveillance arguably justifiable seem like the sort of thing where you'd want the offender either in prison, or with a parole officer breathing down their neck, or deported.

Is the plan in fact just to pay somebody's friend's company a stupid amount of money in order to ensure that every foreigner who has ever gotten a speeding ticket or a simple possession charge more miserable; or are they just faffing around with smartwatches rather than addressing the deficiencies that would lead to having a bunch of comparatively high-risk convicted criminals just sort of wandering around rather than either serving sentences for their crimes or getting expelled rather than fitted with a smart watch?

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[thegarbz]

The context is trying to treat immigrants as horrible as they can possibly get away with to prevent them from coming.