Picking out a face in the crowd: Toronto police considering facial recognition technology:
But for all its abilities, privacy advocates caution that the technology raises big questions about surveillance, and has potential implications for members of the public who aren’t suspects of a crime.
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In cases like these, the technology has clear advantages, says privacy expert Christopher Parsons, a fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.
“Serious crimes — rapes, murders, manslaughter — these are the kinds of crimes that must be brought to justice,” he says. “But for other crimes, lesser crimes, maybe those aren’t the situations where we [should] use these really efficient, high-tech systems.” The risk, he says, is that “it starts … criminalizing a large portion of the population.”
Police aren’t the only organizations to employ this type of technology. Some department stores and retail chains also use it to catch repeat shoplifters. But Parsons points out there is a difference between private individuals capturing images and the police.
“[Private individuals] don’t have the power to arrest,” he says.
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