Australia is using 'The Capability' to store facial records

One of the biggest advances in the surveillance technology will be rolled out by Australian law enforcement agencies, silently. Launched in September 2015, “ The Capability ” is a facial recognition system will be used as a certification service that will cross-reference 100 million images of people’s faces.

This technology costs $18.5 million and will store over four images of every individual in Australia. The images stored will include stills from CCTV footage, passports, drivers’ licences and other identification documents that the agencies will have access to, said a news.com.au report.

This effective technology will be used by the government of Australia in its counterterrorism strategy, but this raises concern about the privacy of an individual and how it will be incorporated in everyday policing.

Last week, Minister for Justice Michael Keenan, along with the minister assisting the prime minister on counterterrorism, announced the details of the $AU18.5-million National Facial Biometric Matching Capability .

He said that this technology will allow state law enforcement as well as Commonwealth agencies and try to match a photograph of an individual or an unknown person with the photographs on government records. This will include photos on IDs such as passports and driving licences as well. The primary motive will be to help put “a name to the face of terror suspects, murderers and armed robbers” as well as other criminals, he added.

However, according to the junkee.com report, the current research showed that the latest facial technology is still plagued with error rates as well as inaccuracies. There is also a doubt regarding how the images stored will be used by the police to make an arrest. Further, there is debate regarding its accuracy. The FBI reportedly has a 20 percent error rate for its Next Generation Identification programme.

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