Facial recognition arrests; Thailand murder claims; aged care overhaul | 7NEWS

Our Take

7NEWS Australia (credit to their team for the on-the-ground reporting) is covering Perth's new facial recognition camera trial like it's an unqualified win: 130,000 faces scanned, arrests happening live during the police commissioner's press conference, only two false alerts. It's the same script we've heard here every time a police department rolls out Flock Safety cameras — impressive arrest numbers up front, questions about scope, accuracy, and mission creep pushed to later, if they get asked at all.

Here's the problem with judging these systems by their highlight reel: nobody scans 130,000 innocent faces and calls it a privacy-neutral success just because most matches were correct. Every person walking through Perth CBD, Midland, or Mirrabooka got run against a police database whether they were suspected of anything or not. That's the trade being normalized — mass, suspicionless scanning of the public in exchange for catching people already wanted. In the US, Flock's ALPR network runs the same play with license plates instead of faces: blanket surveillance justified after the fact by a list of hits. Two technologies, one playbook, and it's spreading fast on both sides of the Pacific.

What starts as a 'five-month trial' rarely stays a trial. Cameras get funded, databases get bigger, and the technology creeps into places and purposes nobody voted on. If you want to see how far this has already spread in your own neighborhood, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for it to become permanent infrastructure, our take-action page has ways to push back before the trial period ends and the system just becomes the new normal.