We have been seeing how facial recognition technology is gaining presence. Not only in mobile phones, but also in other uses such as security. For example, the Welsh Police made use of it in the Champions League Final last year. Thanks to this technology, they are able to identify dangerous or searching people.
Although many criticize the proper functioning of facial recognition. Something that will be questioned again with the effectiveness figures in this Champions League final. Since the hit rate was just 7%, with more than 2.000 false positives. Some data that does not inspire much confidence.
The police made use of this system during the final of the tournament. A total of 173 positive alerts. Although the highlight is that there were 2.297 false positives. Which brings us to this 7% hit rate that we have discussed. But the Welsh police say they are satisfied with the operation. Since thanks to this technology they have achieved 450 arrests in various cases.
The goal of facial recognition is create an algorithm in which the portraits of dangerous or vigilant people are uploaded. In this way, the algorithm will be able to locate these people. In addition to being able to identify them from the crowd in events like the Champions League. So it speeds up the localization process a lot.
Despite the number of false positives of this facial recognition, the police say it is common in these types of systems. But with the passage of time they are improving. So this figure will decrease little by little. In addition, they also comment that the images provided by UEFA and Interpol were of low quality.
They are also aware of the problems and concerns that facial recognition generates in terms of privacy. So they hope that mechanisms will be introduced to regulate this and obtain a balance. What is clear is that it is not the last time that we are going to hear about these problems.