The UK Government is Slammed For Letting Private Facial Recognition Company Off The Hook

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The British press is reporting that behind closed doors, the country’s Home Office was pressuring the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to take a “favorable” stance towards the deployment of facial recognition tech mired in controversy. The technology is sold by a private company, Facewatch, while the ICO is supposed to be an independent regulator. But according to email correspondence the Observer had access to, the Home Office went on to effectively try to strong-arm the latter not to stand in the way of Facewatch’s plans to deploy its surveillance camera devices across the country’s stores – despite a huge public outcry even before these latest revelations. The ICO became entangled in this budding political scandal because it was investigating Facewatch after these cameras started being put in stores. Now emails show that the regulator received pretty much an open threat not to produce negative findings about Facewatch. Otherwise, an email reads, Minister of State for Policing Chris Philp “would write to your (ICO) commissioner” – and that the only way to avoid “letting (Philp’s involvement) take its course” was to act favorably toward the private business, branded by some as a “spy company.” But – “If you are about to do something imminently in Facewatch’s favor then I should be able to head that off,” the redacted email continued. To make matters worse, the message, that has now earned Philp the title of “Facewatch…The UK Government is Slammed For Letting Private Facial Recognition Company Off The Hook