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  • Police face-scanned 90,000 people at Download music festival

    by 
    Nick Summers
    Nick Summers
    06.17.2015

    Unbeknownst to Download attendees, Leicestershire Police were using facial recognition software last weekend to identify known crooks. Roughly 90,000 people descended on the music festival, and strategically placed cameras were used to scan their faces and cross-reference them with a European database. Privacy advocates weren't best pleased when Police Oracle first revealed the police's plans, and now the force has come forward to defend its actions. It says the cameras didn't take or store anyone's photograph, and that the software only compared faces against a list of people known to commit crimes at festivals. In addition, all of the data was destroyed at the end of the weekend.