Facial recognition cameras too racially biased to use at Notting Hill carnival, say campaigners | Police

The Met Commissioner of the Met Commissioner should scrape the plans to use live face recognition (LFR) at the Notting Hill Carnival next weekend, because technology comes into force with “racial prejudice ve and is subject to a legal challenge, 11 civilian freedom and racist groups demanded.

A letter sent to Mark Rowley warns that the use of face-matching cameras will further worse the abuse of state power and racial discrimination in an event that celebrates the African-Karayip community.

Runnymede Trust, Liberty, Big Brother Watch, Race and Human Rights Monitoring Organization on the Agenda is among those who claim that technology is “less right for women and colorful people”.

The request comes only a few days after ministers raised the deployment of minibuses fixed by face recognition technology to nine forces in England and Wales.

MET said last month that he would place cameras specially mounted on the entrances and outputs of the two -day event in Western London. 2 million people participate in the second largest street festival in the world every year on August Bank Holiday Weekend.

In a letter seen by Guardian, the signed people say: “The option to place the LFR in the Notting Hill Carnival is unjustly targeting the society in which the carnival exists to celebrate.

“It was found that Met to be institutionally racist by the independent examination of Baroness Casey and Güven in Met.

“Targeting the Notting Hill carnival with live face recognition technology will worsen the concerns about the abuse of state power and racial discrimination in your power.”

The letter says that since the Metin’s Notting Hill Plan has announced an anti -knife campaignist Shaun Thompson. Thompson, a black British man, was described as a wrong criminal, held by the police, and then met the officers from the officers for fingerprints.

The letter, “Mr. Thompson returned to volunteering with his fathers, a youth defender and anti -violence community organization, surrounded by civil servants and was held for half an hour.

Campaigns claim that the use of the police “self -regulation” is allowed to use technology. In the past, civil servants later used a environment that showed that black people were disproportionately defined.

An independent report by the public company found that LFR technology, which is called Neoface, Metin’s Neoface, was less accurate for women and colorful people when deployed in certain environments.

The author of the report Tony Mansfield admitted that if the system is run on low and easy thresholds, the system has started to prejudice against black men and women ”. The letter says there is no legal obligation for the police to carry out technology in higher environments.

In 2018, a researcher at the MIT Media Lab in the United States concluded that the software provided by three companies made a mistake in 21% to 35% of cases for darker -skinned women. On the contrary, the error rate for light -skinned men was less than 1%.

Other signed Privacy Watch, Privacy International, First Equality of Race, Open Rights Group, Access Now, Stretch and Statewatch are senior figures.

MET said last month to help the cameras, civil servants to “identify and cut the people at risk of public security, and that the carnival will come out of the“ outside the boundaries of the activity ”approach.

Met said that he will use technology in environments that do not show any racial prejudice to reveal people who want the most serious crimes such as knife crimes and sexual assaults.

However, civilian freedom groups were terrified to discover that technology was previously used by the police in Wales to target tickets.

Met, Carnival, about 7,000 officers and staff will be deployed every day, he said.

Police said that the LFR cameras in the Carnival approach will look for people who were shown as missing and subject to sexual damage prevention orders. Scanning belts will be deployed in some of the most intense entry points where stop and search forces will use.

The event is still led by community, but senior politicians expressed their concern about their security, which caused them to move to Hyde Park or to be ticket to prevent crushing in narrow streets.

Interior Minister Yette Cooper said he would prepare a new legal framework for the use of LFR last week. “Facial recognition will be used targeted to describe sex criminals or people who want the most serious crimes that the police cannot find,” he said.

Met and Southern Wales Police are testing technology. Met, rape, domestic abuse, knife offense, severe physical damage and robbery for crimes such as LFR 580 arrests, violating the conditions of 52 registered sex criminals arrested for violating the conditions.

Matt Ward, Deputy Commissioner for the Carnival this year, said that he is still aware that power is still “misunderstanding ında about the use of live face recognition in black and other ethnic minority communities.

“It is right to use the existing technology in the best way to support officials to do their jobs more effectively. So we will use LFR cameras in the carnival and carnival approach outside the limits of the event. Live face recognition has led to more than 1000 arrest since the beginning of 2024.

“The independent tests of the national physical laboratory are accurate and balanced in terms of ethnicity and gender, but about its use, especially in black and other minority ethnic communities, there are still mistakes in the ethnic communities of the ethnic origin and gender.”