A new facial recognition system hopes to “accelerate” police ability to catch highest harm offenders across the county.
Today (November 13), Sussex Police will be deploying its brand new live facial recognition van in Crawley.
The new equipment will use a live camera feed to compare people against a pre-determined watchlist.
This will include wanted people such as sex offenders and perpetrators of domestic abuse.
The vans will be signposted, and deployment locations will be published by the police in advance.
An example of how the technology flags-up criminals on the police watchlist:
Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne hopes the equipment will help “send a message” to the public.
She said: “My job as Police and Crime Commissioner is to make sure communities are protected, that people feel safe and that the police deliver public confidence that people want. I think this is a very welcome step forward.
“I would say to anybody that this isn't about surveillance, it's about safeguarding.
"If you're like me, you're a mum, you've got your young children with you, you want to know who you're standing next to in that shopping queue.
“This is about protection, it's about prevention and it's not about profiling.”
Sussex Police have reassured the public that images of people not on the watchlist will be instantly blurred, deleted, and their data will not be entered into police systems or databases.
Any person which is flagged up on the system, will also be assessed by an officer before action is taken.
The PCC added: “For every person that says to me my human rights, I have a hundred others that will say thank goodness, I can go about shopping in peace and confidence, I can run my business in confidence.
"So, whilst there are a lot of safeguards around this, the algorithm that's run shows that there is no statistical bias on it, it's been tested to the highest levels as well.
“It can only be signed off by a very senior officer to be deployed, it has to be intelligence led, there are a lot of safeguards around it.”
Previously, concerns had been raised about racial and gender bias with facial recognition technology, however the force says national tests and development in technology has greatly reduced this.
It also said officers will be briefed on potential disparity to colour, age, and gender, to ensure there is extra consideration before any action or engagement is taken.
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Project lead, Chief Superintendent Carwyn Hughes, said: “We’ve got a really solid intelligence tool.
“We know that historically there's been concerns in relation to racial and gender bias, but this technology now has been tested at the National Physical Laboratory, it operates to an algorithm threshold and it's set at a level where we are very confident that when an identification is made, it does not provide any bias of any sorts.”
Deployment areas will be decided and authorised by a superintendent and will be based on crime data and hotspots of criminal behaviour.
The van is part of 10 others across the country which have been funded by the Home Office.
Superintendent Hughes added: “It is about the acceleration of capturing people who are wanted already.
"This is about us operating more efficiently and quicker than we normally would be able to. And it's also a great deterrent tool as well.
"Put this on a high street and I'm confident that shopkeepers, for example, will be delighted to see this in the high street.”
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