For the past couple of years, the German Interior Ministry has been funding and progressing on facial recognition software. They've even tested it at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof (main station).
If you follow the updates, there's some speculation that by early 2021....the Interior Ministry would approve some use of the facial recognition system on a permanent basis (going beyond the test phase).
Well....it came up on a page four-type story via the EU mechanism....suddenly, they want to get involved, and ban all implementation of facial recognition for a period of five years.
Is it worrying the privacy folks at the EU? I think they are a bit shocked that the test results have been impressive and that Germany was rapidly advancing on this whole process.
Where would the program have been situated? Again, if you follow the various reports of the past year....mostly at train stations and transport centers (subways).
It's the evolution of this process that amazes me. If unhindered by the EU...I suspect that virtually every single subway station in Berlin over the next five years would have had at least one camera and vast data-banks would have been collecting the data. You can probably add at least ten additional metropolitan German cities onto this list....if unhindered.
By 2030? This would branch out and be in various shopping districts (particularly where theft is rampant) and you might see just in the city of Wiesbaden....over 200 facial recognition 'zones' active and collecting data.
So this forced pause by the EU? It'll anger some within the testing 'gang' of the German Interior Ministry because they are ready to go active. The privacy folks will consider it a victory. But behind all of this....testing will continue on, and they will perfect the facial recognition program to a five-star status by the end of 2025, when this ban would run out. I might go out and predict that massive funding will be programmed in 2024, and the program will go national, and be fully operational within six months after the ban expires.
Whether the privacy folks like it or not.....this technology is coming. For the criminal gangs operating on shop-lifting games, or petty crimes? They are screwed big-time and their careers will be ending.
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