Friday, November 8, 2013

Australia - Bikie wars: Queensland police to use facial recognition technology

OFF THE WIRE

news.com.au


Australia - Bikie wars: Queensland police to use facial recognition technology as outlaw motorcycle gangs go underground (several vids) POLICE plan to trial facial recognition technology on the Gold Coast as outlaw motorcycle gangs go underground. Gold Coast Acting Chief Superintendent Des Lacy told The Courier-Mail he wants the council's CCTV camera footage and photos taken by officers on their smartphones used to draw matches from police criminal databases.
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He said the technology could be used to catch out criminals banned from entering the Glitter Strip, and later rolled out in other Queensland areas if a trial was success
"What we want to do is try to see how it works in a small environment and that's why I was interested in having a look at it for the Gold Coast," Chief Supt Lacy told The Courier-Mail.
"If we had certain members under banning orders in the CBD, that would be an ideal way to identify if they are breaching that banning order, be them criminal motorcycle gang members or any person who has been banned."
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate backed a CCTV facial recognition trial and said the council had 150 cameras across Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach, Coolangatta and Southport. "Whatever they want to do, I'll put more resources towards it if we need to," Mr Tate said.
Chief Supt Lacy said the technology could be used on police smartphones and a rollout of devices to officers was trialling vehicle and people searches and data entry from street checks.
He said in the future it was hoped the system would be able to search hundreds of thousands of images in a statewide criminal database.
He said facial recognition would also be useful for the V8 Supercars and Schoolies which had ban lists, while police have also flagged using the technology at the G20 Summit in Brisbane next year.