Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary is piloting the use of live facial recognition technology for the first time to help officers remove offenders from our communities.
As part of an ongoing operation to target outstanding suspects for high risk and priority offences, individuals wanted on warrants and those evading court proceedings, the vans will be used at locations in Portsmouth, Southampton, Basingstoke and Winchester over three days alongside traditional policing tactics.
The technology will also be used to assist with our searches for high risk missing people.
The areas where it is being used will be clearly marked with signage and officers will be on hand to speak to members of the public and answer any questions. The technology for the operation is being provided by South Wales Police as part of a mutual aid arrangement.
As part of an ongoing operation to target outstanding suspects for high risk and priority offences, individuals wanted on warrants and those evading court proceedings, the vans will be used at locations in Portsmouth, Southampton, Basingstoke and Winchester over three days alongside traditional policing tactics.
The technology will also be used to assist with our searches for high risk missing people.
The areas where it is being used will be clearly marked with signage and officers will be on hand to speak to members of the public and answer any questions. The technology for the operation is being provided by South Wales Police as part of a mutual aid arrangement.
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NewsTranscript
00:00So my name is Paul Bartolomeo, I'm the Assistant Chief Constable for Crime and Criminal Justice
00:04here in Hampshire in Idylwyc and Constabulary. So today we're running a new trial using the
00:09latest technology across Southampton where we're using facial recognition technology to quickly
00:16scan members of the public's faces to see whether they are wanted for offences or whether they've
00:21failed to appear at court and if they are our officers are then going to speak to them entertain
00:26them if they're not and I want to reassure the public if you're not on our watch list if you're
00:30not in those categories of wanted for an offence or failing to set up a court then your image is
00:35scanned and deleted within half a second and no record is kept of that. So the technology
00:41uses high definition cameras to scan the features of individuals faces that are unique to all of us
00:47and then that matches against our watch list or it doesn't match against our watch list and so
00:52as an example yesterday in Portsmouth we scanned over 35,000 faces and we arrested two people we
00:58didn't stop and speak to anybody that wasn't on our watch list and today in Southampton we've got
01:03four vans out looking to do exactly the same we've already arrested one person who failed to turn up
01:09at court. We consider very carefully our watch list here consists of two groups of people
01:15one is people that have been charged and have meant to appear at court have failed to appear at
01:21court and of course if they don't appear at court a warrant is issued for their arrest and we look
01:25to detain them put them back before the court so that the victim can have justice. The other group
01:30of offenders the other group on the list is individuals who are wanted for offences here
01:35in Hampshire that we just don't know where they are we've tried previous addresses we haven't been
01:38able to locate them so we want to detain arrest those question them for the offence then decide
01:43whether they go before a court or not. The vast I've been here for the last two hours the vast
01:48majority in fact almost everybody I've spoken to has been really positive about what we're doing
01:53so it's great for community engagement they're reassured the local police force is using cutting
01:58edge technology to apprehend those criminals and put them before the court so they're very very
02:02supportive of what we're doing. To answer your question on the other side so some people are
02:06concerned about privacy and to reassure those we take that very very seriously so we've taken
02:13the best practice from other forces the learning from other cases that have gone before criminal
02:17and civil courts we've spoken to our own independent ethics committee our own data
02:24data protection assessment we've completed and to just to reassure the public that if you're not on
02:30that watch list within it's less than half a second your image is taken checked and deleted
02:35and there's no record kept of that scam. I think we would so we were really really keen to assess
02:42the effectiveness and efficiency it's efficient way of policing in my view over the next three
02:47days so we'll take that into the round and obviously we'll then speak to our police and
02:51crime commissioner about how we might take that that funding forward.