Perth police trial live facial recognition cameras | 7NEWS

Our Take

Credit to 7NEWS Australia for getting cameras and quotes on this one, because "human verification required before any action is taken" is exactly the same soothing line Flock Safety and every other surveillance vendor recites here in the States. It sounds like a safeguard until you remember that a human clicking "confirm" on a machine's guess is not the same thing as due process, and it does nothing to stop the database from growing or the cameras from spreading to the next event, and the next.

Australia doesn't have Flock's ALPR network blanketing its neighborhoods, but the playbook is identical: start with a narrow, sympathetic use case — wanted persons, missing kids — bolt it onto existing camera infrastructure, and let the scope quietly widen once the public stops paying attention. American cities heard the same pitch about license plate readers being for stolen cars and Amber Alerts, and now those cameras log the movements of millions of innocent drivers every day, often shared across agencies with zero warrant required.

Face and plate are just two flavors of the same problem: a permanent, searchable record of where you go, built without your consent and rarely with real oversight. If you want to see how far that network already reaches near you, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for "trial" programs to become permanent infrastructure, our take-action page has ways to push back before it does.