Police Facial Recognition Body Cams Can Be Edited By Law Enforcement

By MassPrivateI

Soon nowhere will be safe from Big Brother’s prying eyes. Imagine walking down Main St., and seeing officer friendly approaching you. As the officer approaches you, he or she has already scanned your face against a 15 million person database and knows if you have any outstanding tickets, warrants, etc.

That is the future of American policing.

Police across America will soon be using Vigilant Solutions (VS), “VideoBadge” body cams to identify everyone they come in contact with. (Click here to find out more.)

A VS “wearable security” video tries to convince people that it is fun to use facial recognition body cams to spy on everyone.

A question everyone should be asking is, why does a private corporation have a 15 million person “gallery” of Americans and how could it be abused?

Putting a corporation in charge of a facial recognition database is only asking for trouble.

How long will it be before corporations adds images of suspected shoplifters, bad actors, activists, protesters or Americans on the No-Fly List to their database? Will corporations also add people from their private watchlists?

The reasons why a corporate-run facial recognition database is a terrible idea are too numerous to mention here but hopefully you get the idea.

Unfortunately, I have only scratched the surface of what is wrong with VS’s police facial recognition body cams.

What is truly disturbing about “VideoBadge” is how police can edit the footage with one-click using VideoManager.

Use VideoBadge in the field under any conditions, day or night, to obtain high-quality footage of a scene as the incident evolves. Then, download the footage in minutes into VideoManager, search for companion angles and complementary footage from nearby cameras, and edit the footage as needed to protect innocent bystanders. (Source)

Make no mistake, letting law enforcement edit body cam footage “as needed” can and will be abused.

VS also allows police to use RFID to selectively choose which cam will record an incident.

RFID assignment helps you quickly assign a camera to a user and know exactly which users and cameras are in use

In other words, police can now selectively choose which body cam will be used to fit their narrative or edit specific body cam footage to support their case.

VS also allows police to edit and access thousands of CCTV camera footage. But how will police have access to thousands of CCTV cameras you ask?

By accessing the huge database of private CCTV cameras that corporations and the public have been providing through thirty different types of police cam-share programs and spying doorbells.

Massive scalability permits the platform to work with thousands of cameras at once while maintaining scale.

VideoManager allows police to access any CCTV camera that recorded the incident.

Is this the future you want? Corporate-run facial recognition databases, spying police body cams and CCTV cameras?

You can read more at the MassPrivateI blog, where this article first appeared.

Image credit: The Anti-Media