NTechLab

Governments are repurposing Covid-focused face recognition systems as tools of repression. Russia’s internal security forces are using Moscow’s visual surveillance system, initially meant to help enforce pandemic-era restrictions, to crack down on anti-government...

Face recognition algorithms have come under scrutiny for misidentifying individuals. A U.S. government agency tested over 1,000 of them to see which are the most reliable.

In Argentina, a municipal face recognition system could misidentify children as suspected lawbreakers. Authorities in Buenos Aires are scanning subway riders’ faces to find offenders in a database of suspects but the system mixes criminal records with personal information about minors.

Real-time face recognition has become standard operating procedure for cops in a few cities, in both authoritarian and democratic countries. After years of trials, police departments in Moscow and London are using face recognition to scan the streets for suspected criminals.