Will The London Riots Be The Turning Point For Facial Recognition As A Crime …

Digital vigilantes discuss legal issues around identifying rioters using facial recognition technology

If you riot, social media will be used to track you down. That is no longer a surprise to anyone. A new twist in social media surveillance work following the London riots, though, may be the use of facial recognition technology to identify those involved.

After the riots in Vancouver earlier this year, following a Stanley Cup loss, a Canadian insurance corporation volunteered the use of its drivers’ photos database should authorities wish to use facial recognition technology to identify and charge rioters. A spokesperson from the Vancouver Police Department tells me that the agency, while aware of the technology, ultimately decided not to use it.

“We are aware of the technology but have not used it in the investigation that is currently underway. We have many investigative avenues and tools that we are putting into use currently that are working well to advance the investigation,” Constable Lindsey Houghton tells me.

Web vigilantes are doing their best to make sure facial recognition technology gets a fair shake in the London riots, though. Just last week, researchers established that off-the-shelf facial recognition technology mixed with Facebook’s vast database of photos linked to people’s real identities can lead to fairly reliable identification of complete strangers. Digital crime-fighters plan to use the same techniques the researchers used to identify students at Carnegie Mellon University to identify English rioters. On a Google group called London Riots Facial Recognition, a bunch of technophiles are discussing using Face.com’s facial recognition API to create a Facebook app that will identify ne’er-do-wells in London.

After getting media attention, the Google Group members have made their group private, but here’s a screenshot (above at right) of the members discussing the legal issues around identifying those involved…

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Londoners Use Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr To ‘Catch Rioters’

Police post photos of rioters on Flickr in an appeal for further information.

For opportunistic folks who used social media tools to find and jump into recent rioting and looting in London, those same tools could be used to nab them soon enough.

Londoners sickened by the violence gripping their city are using technology to fight back against this weekend’s surge of local criminality. Police and local residents in the U.K.’s capital have been taking advantage of the proliferation of smartphone cameras and using sites like Facebook, Tumblr and Flickr to post photos of thugs who joined in looting sprees in London in recent days in order to help bring them to justice.

One anonymous individual has set up catchalooter.tumblr.com, posting people’s photos of looters who no doubt thought they had avoided closed-circuit television cameras. Admittedly, most of the photos posted so far don’t show much of the culprits’ faces, but the site can at least act as a repository for those who’ve nabbed photos of miscreants. “This site does not support vigilante action,” the site says, “merely using social media to collate all images in one place.”

A Facebook page has also been set up, “Let’s catch the London 2011 rioters and looters,” where people can also post photos or videos of looting.

And the Metropolitan police have used Flickr to post photos of suspected rioters and looters in places like West Norwood and Croydon. The police need a simple repository for photos in what will likely be the biggest single criminal investigation for some time.

The Met police said earlier today that last night was the “worst [it had] seen in current memory for the unacceptable levels of widespread looting, fires and disorder.”

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