What You See Is What You Get: Facial Recognition

While the technology has been available for some time and has been featured in Hollywood movies, it's still instructive to consider the application of facial recognition techniques for law enforcement.
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/technology/chicago-police-using-facial-recognition-technology-identify-suspects

The Chicago Police Department (CPD) has used the 'NeoFace' technology, which taps into the footage generated by the nearly 24,000 closed-circuit cameras distributed within their jurisdiction. Recently, the CPD made their first arrest employing facial recognition capabilities. Pierre Martin was apprehended following an incident on the Chicago subway system involving an armed robberty. The CPD was able to match images of Martin after a comparison with more than 4.5 million booking shots in their files. A prodigious amount of analysis completed with minimal human interaction.

This operational breakthrough has been met with serious concerns about invasion of privacy by members of the Illinois ACLU. However, as a cost-effective law enforcement tool, it has considerable promise.

Certainly the kind of Orwellian surveillance that CCTV facilitates is a matter for public policy debate. Of course, the goal of public and community safety may warrant the application of this particular form of technology if it produces results that can stand the test of the courts, as well as, within the court of public opinion.

Apps to Guard the Guardians

Recently, there has been some coverage of new and interesting apps for recording citizen-police encounters. We know that events at the Vancouver Airport recorded on a video-camera when Robert Dziekanski was confronted by members of the RCMP were pivotal to discerning what actually happened to this individual. Now there are more ways to protect the sanctity of such exchanges. Keeping on Top of Cops

The cost of constant, continuous surveillance may well be a diminishment of personal privacy. However, when there are more avenues and opportunities for maintaining an ongoing watch over the "guardians" of society, I believe that may be construed as a good thing. The G-20 Summit in Toronto was an event that witnessed many breaches on the part of the Toronto Police Service and these lapses in operational judgment were properly captured by citizens, bystanders and participants at this event. Their forensic value is immense and the evidence provided allowed the police to make appropriate arrests for those engaged in damage to property and other potentially criminal acts. This evidence also clearly demonstrated that the police were prone to exceeding their use of force policies, procedures and practices.