Five arrests were made after scanning over 47,000 faces in Ipswich using live facial recognition.
The police wanted to find people linked to crimes. They made five arrests because of the tech. Four people didn’t show up to court before, and one person stole from a store.
Essex Police loaned them the facial recognition equipment. It compared live camera feeds to a “watchlist.” This watchlist included pictures of people of interest.
If a face didn’t match, they deleted the image right away. They did not keep images of regular people. Officers verified IDs when the system found a match. Then, they decided what to do next.
An assistant chief constable felt good about the trial. He thinks they might use the system again and said it helps find and arrest suspects. The public seemed interested in the tech too.
Many people checked out the system in the van. Most people were positive about it. A police commissioner was very happy with the results. He thinks the tech can prevent crime and wants to keep Suffolk safe for everyone.