The Associated Press via The Wash. Post, Oct 17, 1998 http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/searches/mainsrch.htm#ap Chasing Crooks on Closed Circuit TV http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19981017/V000263-101798-idx .ht ml LONDON (AP) -- An ``intelligent'' computer system that uses closed circuit television to match faces in a crowd to mug shots of known criminals is likely to become London's latest weapon against crime. Scotland Yard and a local council have installed the $100,000 CCTV system on a trial basis in Newham, a poor district in London's East End. Newspapers reported Thursday that the computer system, called Mandrake, is linked to 144 CCTVs in Newham's shopping centers, railway stations and car parks and can scan up to 150 faces at a time and compare them with a database of criminals stored on a computer at the council's headquarters. If there is a match between a face in the crowd and a known criminal, the computer alerts a monitoring team in the town hall, who in turn alert the police. Civil liberties groups said they were alarmed by the new system, but police defended its use. ``The only people entered on to the system will be convicted criminals who, through our intelligence, we believe are habitually committing crimes in the area,'' The Daily Mail quoted police Chief Superintendent Dave Armond as saying. ``If people are not committing crime they have nothing to fear, but if they are among the small minority who are, the message is, 'We are watching out for you.''' The newspaper reported that police initially will use the system to concentrate on catching robbery suspects. In the future, however, it could be used to search crowds for hooligans who stir up trouble at soccer matches. CCTV's developer, Software and Systems International, says the system is accurate enough to discern people hiding behind make-up or eye glasses. And growing a beard won't help either, the company says. Britain has 150,000 close circuit television cameras. While most Britons appear happy the devices are being used to tackle crime, civil liberties groups oppose both the cameras and the facial matching. ``The accuracy of facial mapping like this is limited. You only need a handful of photographs of celebrities to see how different the same people can look in different pictures,'' the Mail quoted Liz Parratt, spokeswoman for Liberty, a civil rights group, as saying. ``Even if you did have a system which worked, it would have to be regulated very carefully to protect people's privacy.'' \ Copyright 1998 The Associated Press -- Tim Griffiths griffith@wis.weizmann.ac.il Center for Submicron Research http://tim01.ex.ac.uk Weizmann Institute of Science (972)-8-934-2736 Rehovot 76100 Israel PGP Public key available - finger tim@tim01.ex.ac.uk The real value lies not in what I say or do, but in your reaction to it. -DF