Following our Alien CCTV story in Feed 055 and a recent win at the excellent Big Brother Awards, the Mandrake facial recognition project used by the Middlesex Police to spot “criminals” is now available free for you at home. That’s right, spot your very own hoodlums outside your front door or compile your own database of “cute chicks” like Nottingham’s Police camera operators allegedly do on Saturday afternoons.

Public CCTV is a very sensitive issue and one not many people are aware of. More and more CCTV cameras are being erected on our streets and invading our privacy for the sake of the “higher cause”. Exactly what that cause is, is yet to be proved. As much as the free Face It software is a gimmick to impress your work mates, the sobering fact that very similar software is being used to scan your face every day by trained Police units without you knowing about.

We are not taking sides here, just letting you know what is going on and for you to make your own informed decision.

http://www.faceit.com/

http://www.spy.org.uk/

http://www.spy.org.uk/