PM accused of ignoring civil rights and aping autocracies as he proposes new powers after far-right unrest

"Civil liberties campaigners have said that a proposal made by Keir Starmer on Thursday to expand the use of live facial recognition technology would amount to the effective introduction of a national ID card system based on people’s faces.

Silkie Carlo, the director of Big Brother Watch, said it was ironic the new prime minister was suggesting a greater use of facial matching on the same day that an EU-wide law largely banning real-time surveillance technology came into force…"

  • @NateNate60
    4•5 months ago

    I think that it’s not that people are scared of the Government having that information; it’s that they are afraid that a national ID scheme will make indexing, organising, and retrieving that information easier.

    • @[email protected]
      1•5 months ago

      Right, yeah, I guess that makes sense, although I guess that even if that were the case my question would be “so what?”, and I feel a bit doubtful that a national ID scheme would make it markedly easier than it already is at any rate, what with driving licenses etc.