Chinese Police Wearing Facial Recognition Are Here

Historically, U.S. law enforcement agencies are not too keen on asking anyone if they can use any technology... they simply do it until someone (ACLU, etc.) tries to make them first admit they are using the technology, and second, to stop using it without the proper legal framework in place to do so.

Stingrays, ALPR and GPS cell phone tracking are some examples of the above.

i.e. without specific laws in place to prevent use, we should expect to see this technology being used by U.S. law enforcement once it is commercially available. 

"But a police officer standing in front of you, scanning your face, calling out your name and attempting to arrest you for nothing but you being on the street is a whole different level of public issue / spectacle."

Other than the Chinese norm of 'arrest you for nothing but you being on the street', how is a cop with FR glasses fundamentally different than what US LE currently does with LPR from within their vehicles?

They scan an image (license plate, face) and compare it to a database.  If they get a hit, they either stop you on the street and arrest you (FR) or pull over your vehicle first and then arrest you (LPR).

The FBI has had their Face Services division for some time now.... and the only thing separating what they already do with what they will be able to do is better performing comparison technology.  i.e. at the moment they are using their Face Services team to manually compare the 'best results' kicked out by the FR technology to visually confirm identity before sending the final result to LE who've requested their Face Services. i.e. at the moment it is being used as an investigative tool.

However, once the technology is more mature and can be relied on without human intervention and verification (like ALPR can already do, due to it's rigid structure vs varying facial characteristics) you will see it happening right here on the streets of the good old U S of A.

And no one is ever going to ask if they can do it - they will just do it until they aren't legally able to based on statute.

imo, the only way to get ahead of it is to make the practice illegal before they are able to use the technology in the manner described..

I'm very surprised that all the comments so far are negative. The big brother fear mentality has definitely spread far and wide. I expect more from intelligent peers in the technology industry.

Currently, LEOs are captilizing on the abilities of technology through body cams, public camera networks, and LPRs. This is the next logical step and a valuable tool.

In fact, the idea that the officer is wearing the camera should lessen the worry of privacy issues and 4th amendment claims. If the officer is legally present at a location and can see someone then everything that officer sees is usable. 

If he/she sees a wanted person in public, they have every right to stop, question, confirm ID, etc. They can ask you to show ID, remove hat, glasses, or mask as they investigate. Well before they "arrest" or detain someone. 

One of the biggest problems currently is subjects involved in an investigation giving false names and no ID. I believe here it is a crime to give a false name to a LEO conducting a lawful investigation and this could help solve that.

I am much more comfortable with glasses on a LEO than a drone peering in a elevated window of a private residence.

This is simply another tool in the LE toolbox that has great potential. A DB is a much better and unbiased tool than the standard radio description lookout of " black male, 6', white tee shirt, blue jeans" that causes many profiling claims currently.

I for one see this as a business opportunity that has great value and place in our industry. If any one wants to pass due to moral issues, please send your customers my way.

This is great ; depends if the footage is uploaded to cloud or if it’s just used for real time facial .

"The problem is not the technology, but the application."

agree.

"Inappropriate use should be addressed as it occurs."

disagree.

My primary position is that inappropriate use should be addressed before it occurs.

Hmph. Nice.

So I'm not the only one who has a hard time distinguishing chinese people apart. 

Its a police state anyway... What difference does it make? Honestly, I think we need it here for the US in high crime areas. 

Update: Risk of False Matches

One risk that still remains is falsely matching people. The system may say the person in front of the police officer matches a terror or murder suspect but it is still entirely possible that the person simply resembles that suspect and is hard to determine / judge in the moment, as this WSJ reporter explains:

China = ‘Big Brother’ for its surveillance tech. But US uses it too

...says Asia Times.

"The Chinese government has never pretended to be a Jeffersonian democracy."

"...the per capita proportion of surveillance cameras to citizens in the two nations isn’t that different."