Western Australia police scan one million faces in facial recognition trial

Police in Western Australia scanned more than one million faces during a five-month trial of real-time facial recognition technology, according to the Guardian. The trial concluded on Saturday and resulted in 122 arrests. [1]

The Guardian reported that Western Australia police deployed surveillance vans 100 times across 43 regional and metropolitan locations. The technology scanned 1,380,882 faces in total during the trial. [1]

The trial produced nine incorrect alerts during its run, the Guardian reported. The alerts also led police officers to engage with 146 registered sex offenders. [1]

Facial recognition systems run computer algorithms to compare facial images or representations to verify an identity or identify a person from a database of known identities. Systems can perform one-to-one verification against a linked image or one-to-many searches across an entire database. [2]