Undercover cops secretly use smartphones, face recognition to spy on crowds

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Used at #resistRNC RT @evgenymorozov: Undercover cops secretly use smartphones, face recognition to spy on crowds http://blogs.computerworld.com/privacy/21010/undercover-cops-secretly-use-smartphones-face-recognition-spy-crowds

A Florida intelligence officer admitted that undercover police were mingling with the public, using their smartphones to take videos and photos to spy on “suspicious” citizens. Then the undetected cops could determine a person’s name by checking the image against a facial recognition database. That is precisely what happened at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, according to a report from the National Journal.

Undercover police use smartphones and facial recognition on publicAn undercover cop can often be spotted in a crowd due to wearing an earpiece or talking into a microphone hidden under his or her sleeve. But by using smartphones and tablets loaded with specialized apps, these same undercover officers mingled with demonstrators, took photos and transmitted “real-time video of protesters as they moved about the streets.” Sgt. Dale Moushon, with the Intelligence Unit of the St. Petersburg Police Department, told the National Journal, “Everyone has a phone, so officers blend in easier.”

He also pointed to an instance in which an officer was preparing to take a picture of a suspicious person so staff could use facial-recognition software to identify the person. Instead, the person happened to pull out a document that included his identifying information that was then captured in real-time by the officer’s live video feed. “That saved us a lot of time,” Moushon said.

(More at the link.)