Police chiefs: Give us CCTV clues to criminals' behaviour

12 April 2012

Police chiefs are demanding full access to Britain's 30,000 local council CCTV cameras so they can analyse physical movements that could help identify criminals.

Using high-tech facial-recognition technology, they want to identify suspects and even examine their behaviour as they look for tell-tale signs of someone planning a crime.

Sophisticated computer systems linked to the Police National Computer can now compare images taken by the cameras with thousands of mugshots and identify a suspect in seconds.

Scroll down for more...

Big Brother: Police chiefs are asking for full access to Britain's CCTV cameras so that they can analyse movements that could help identify criminals

From next year, all forces will have access to pictures of everyone arrested for a criminal offence in the UK, with photos loaded on a new Facial Images Database.

It already holds 750,000 digital images of suspects. They say this should link directly to the CCTV network.

Under proposals to the Home Office, the CCTV footage would be available in police control rooms.

Police also want to use the system automatically to search for offenders and identify people behaving suspiciously using special computer programs.

They say it could even identity terrorists.

Home Office Security Minister Tony McNulty dismissed people's fears about privacy, saying: "They are fundamentally wrong."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in