Sri Lanka Police Introduce Plan for Face-Based Surveillance System

Sri Lanka police are planning to roll out a new face recognition surveillance system in an effort to track down wanted criminals. The system was discussed with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, and will be deployed alongside a database that contains information about subjects who have been ducking the authorities and avoiding capture.

The criminal database represents a collaboration between law enforcement, the Department of Immigration and Emigration, the Department of Registration of Persons, and Sri Lanka Telecom, and will be created with input from all four organizations. The database will reportedly be available to every law enforcement officer.

That last bit of information will likely raise concerns for privacy advocates worried about the potential misuse of the system. The Ohio Attorney General recently scaled back the number of officers with access to a similar database, and calls to ban or restrict the police use of facial recognition have been getting louder in the US and other parts of the world.

However, the technology continues to be popular with law enforcement agencies. NEC has outfitted Gurugram with facial recognition traffic cameras, and the British Home Secretary has publically defended the practice.

Source: Sunday Times

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September 3, 2019 – by Eric Weiss

Like all biometrics solutions, face recognition technology measures and matches the unique characteristics for the purposes of identification or authentication. Often leveraging a digital or connected camera, facial recognition software can detect faces in images, quantify their features, and then match them against stored templates in a database.

Face scanning biometric tech is incredibly versatile and this is reflected in its wide range of potential applications. Learn more on FindBiometrics’ Facial Recognition page.