Is Populism a Distraction From a More Important Fight?

The sinister news this week that British courts have greenlighted the police’s use of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology in public spaces is yet another demolition charge detonated under the foundation of individual freedom as we have understood it in the modern world. Yet it will likely pass with little notice in the daily avalanche of crises and distractions, from wars and political scandals to the latest TikTok fad. We have come to barely notice the tightening of control on our private lives and the destruction of the most important underpinnings of liberty and human dignity. This process is now nearly irreversible and almost complete – and the lack of any serious political resistance to it is absolutely astounding.

LFR tech takes mass surveillance to the next level. It identifies and tracks you personally, and your every behaviour, in public. Of course, the justification is “fighting crime” and improving public safety, just like the restrictions and surveillance of your online activity have been continuously expanded in the name of “online safety”. The idea with all this is that you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.

Except that we see how it’s playing out in China – the only other more enthusiastic and legally-established environment for LFR than Britain – where LFR is used to deter protest, to penalise even small rule-breaking like harmless jaywalking, and more broadly to advance social control in conjunction with the CPC’s Social Credit System. In the UK all of this it is now starting just with a few initial deployments of LFR on police vans in a few city centres; but whoever thinks that there is any way to prevent the expansion of this practice now that the technology and the principle of State use of it has been established, is deluded.