As a Former Police Officer, What's Happening With Facial Recognition in the UK Concerns Me
The short version: A former UK cop's warning about facial recognition scans surging 87% is a preview of the automated, suspicionless surveillance already creeping into American policing via ALPRs.
Our Take
MrWaters brings a credibility most critics can't: he's worn the badge, and now he's sounding the alarm on facial recognition dragnets scanning millions of faces without individualized suspicion. When someone who used to run these systems says the trajectory worries him, that's not activist hyperbole — that's an insider watching mission creep happen in real time.
The UK's facial recognition expansion and America's Flock Safety camera network are cousins in the same surveillance family. Both operate on the same logic: scan everyone, always, and sort out who's "suspicious" after the fact. Both started with narrow justifications — find serious criminals, recover stolen cars — and both have quietly normalized tracking the movements of entirely innocent people as a matter of routine. The 87 percent jump this creator cites isn't an anomaly; it's the predictable curve every surveillance system follows once it's allowed to exist unchecked.
We don't have nationwide facial recognition scanning here yet, but we have thousands of ALPR cameras logging plates, locations, and timestamps on ordinary Americans every day. Check our camera map to see what's already watching in your area, and visit our take-action page if you want to push back before it scales the way it has in London.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of MrWaters, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.