zlacker

>>amarch+(OP)
In itself this is a storm in a teacup.

The important question, only important question IMHO, is how they handle positives. Do they go all guns blazing and arrest the person on the spot? Or do they use a restrained approach and first nicely ask the person if they have any ID, etc? That's the important bit.

>>mytail+Xr
Then what happens if you don't have ID on you (which, for now, is entirely legal in the UK)? What if you're hours from home? Do you then need to completely cancel your day to spend it with the cops instead satisfy some shit algorithm that misidentified you as some known threat? What if you refuse to cooperate because you have better things to do than waste your time with the police? I'm sure that'll go well for you.

What if your child falls victim to a false identification, and then given that children are far less likely to have some form of ID on them than adults, they're stuck for much longer?

Do you trust the British police to take good care of your child? Or will they strip-search her and threaten her with arrest like they did with the then-15-year-old Child Q because they decided that she "smelled of weed"?

Do you really want more unnecessary interactions with the police for yourself or those you care about when your "suspicious behaviour" was having an algorithm judge that your face looked like someone else's?

>>cmcale+5w
It's also worth noting that if you are arrested for a serious offence your DNA and biometrics will taken and held for ever even if you are release without charge and the real perpetrator latter convicted.

In the eyes of the law you will be innocent but you'll still be treated like a criminal.

The same could accidentally happen for a minor offence too.

West Yorkshire, West Mids, The Met and Great Manchester Police have all made admin "mistakes"[1] where they failed to delete DNA evidence since the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 came into force.

No one has been sanctioned or fined for those mistakes.

You might not think being on that list matters but during the good ol' days of the 1980s innocent trades union activists were placed on a secret list by the Met's Special Branch and that list passed potential empoyers to bar them from getting jobs.

Again, no one punished for that and if it's happend once it can happen again.

See the Scott Inquiry for details.

1. These scare quotes are because I don't beleive this always happens through incompetence. I'm not saying it's always the case but some of the time the police are just ignoring the rules because the rules have no teeth.