A new report shows the British police are forcing people to have their faces scanned as part of a controversial surveillance scheme which is being rolled out in London.
A Tuesday report in the Evening Standard said police officers testing the Live Facial Recognition technology in central neighborhoods of London were treating shoppers in an invasive manner.
Officials in the Liberty human rights organization told the newspaper that anyone who declined to cooperate with police officers on the ground and avoided their cameras was treated as suspicious.
This comes despite a previous statement by the Scotland Yard, the investigative police force in London, saying that the trial roll-out of the scheme would not affect ordinary people and only those on police’s watch list would become involved.
The Metropolitan Police also said last week that “anyone who declines to be scanned will not be viewed as suspicious by police officers”.
It…