From: Jan <igniting@flash.net> Subject: IP: High-tech Anti-crime Computer Unveiled Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 20:10:22 -0500 To: Ignition-Point <ignition-point@majordomo.pobox.com> <center>The Associated Press </center> LONDON -- An "intelligent" computer system that uses closed circuit television to match faces in a crowd to mug shots of criminals is likely to become London's latest weapon against crime. Scotland Yard and a local council have installed the $100,000 CCTV system for a trial in Newham, a poor district in London's East End. Newspapers reported Thursday that the computer system, called Mandrake, is linked to 144 CCTV's in shopping centers, railway stations and car parks. Mandrake can scan up to 150 faces at a time and compare them with a database of criminal mug shots stored on a computer at council headquarters. If Mandrake makes a match between a face in the crowd and a criminal's mug shot, the computer alerts a monitoring team in the town hall, which alerts 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 saying. "If people are not committing crimes, 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 the police will initially use the system to concentrate on catching robbery suspects. However, in the future it could be used to search crowds for hooligans who stir up trouble at soccer matches. CCTV's developer, Software and Systems International, said the system is accurate enough to identify people hiding behind makeup or eyeglasses. Even growing a beard won't help, the company said. Britain has 150,000 closed circuit TV cameras. Although most Britons are used to the devices, civil liberties groups oppose the cameras and the facial matching. "The accuracy of facial matching 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 the civil rights group liberty, as saying. "Even if you did have a system which worked, it would have to be regulated very carefully to protect people's privacy." Transcribed by Ryan Wright from Sunday, Oct 18, 1998, Star Telegram, Fort Worth Texas, Section A page 19 ******=========================================***** "Among the elementary measures the American Soviet government will adopt to further the cultural revolution are... [a] National Department of Education...the studies will be revolutionized, being cleansed of religious, patriotic, and other features of the bourgeois ideology. The students will be taught the basis of Marxian dialectical materialism, internationalism and the general ethics of the new Socialist society." - William Z. Foster, Toward Soviet America, 1932 "...Stage III...would proceed to a point where no state would have the military power to challenge the progressively strengthened U.N. peace force... The manufacture of armaments would be prohibited... All other armaments would be destroyed..." -Department of State publication number 7277 **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo@majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ****************************************************