Security at the cost of losing your privacy?
The police department at Leicestershire just upped their security and scanned each and every person’s face at Download Music Festival‘s 2015 edition. Apparently, this was the first time the tech was trialled outside, it was usually only ever used in a controlled environment, until now.
This is how the facial recognition works – “The strategically placed cameras will scan faces at the Download Festival site in Donington before comparing it with a database of custody images from across Europe.” Leicestershire police said it hoped the system would enable them to find organised criminals who prey on festivalgoers who are often victims of theft.
(Image Courtesy: dancemusicnw.com)
All 100,000 festival attendees were scanned with this new tech at Download and it is said that there has been a lot of interest from other festivals saying: ‘If it works, can we borrow it?’
This does seem like an efficient way to discourage and even to some extent avoid criminal activity at the festival and in the cities it is implemented, but the price would be having several thousand festival goers monitored, invariably invading their privacy in a sense.
Do let us know your thoughts on this, folks.