The South Wales Police department is preparing to resume its use of live facial recognition technology. The department first started trialing face-based surveillance tech in 2017, but pulled back in 2020 after the British Court of Appeal ruled that the South Wales system violated human rights laws on several fronts.

However, that has not deterred the South Wales Police. The department is essentially viewing its defeat as part of the learning process, and claims that it has been able to use the Court’s feedback to develop a surveillance system that will meet a stricter legal standard.

Copies of the "field interview cards" that police complete when they question civilians reveal that LAPD officers are instructed to record a civilian's Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media accounts, alongside basic biographical information. An internal memo further shows that the police chief, Michel Moore, told employees that it was critical to collect the data for use in "investigations, arrests, and prosecutions," and warned that supervisors would review cards to ensure they were complete.

Investigative genealogy helped police catch serial killers And rapists. Now cases are going unsolved.
Investigative genealogy has been celebrated as one of the biggest crime-fighting breakthroughs in decades, but privacy concerns have all but ground its use to a halt.
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