Soon, the Swedish police can use the facial recognition technology to identify faces in images of unknown perpetrators against the signal element register. After a legal analysis done by the police legal department now National Forensic Center, NFC green light to carry out a sharp pilot on real material with self-purchased technology.
- I hope the pilot will be able to give us exciting results. Firstly, we want to see if it works in itself and also get an idea of how many searches the police expect, says Elisabet Leitet, a forensic scientist at NFC.
Both automatically and manuallyThe operation will function in a similar way to the fingerprint and DNA registers, where NFC performs searches of traces on behalf of investigators.
Real images of unknown perpetrators from crime scenes will be searched using the face recognition system against images in the signaling register. The system will then deliver a search list with the best matches. The list is then in turn reviewed by forensics who make an overall assessment of whether or not it contains a potential candidate.
- This can save an extremely long time and I hope it will lead to increased crime clearance in the long run, says Elisabet Leitet.
Consultation with the Data Inspectorate is requiredThe pilot will run during April, May and June and the hope is to be able to introduce automatic facial recognition for searches against the signaling register in the ongoing operations at NFC in the fall of 2019. Before that, however, consultation with the Data Inspectorate is required.
- I want the business to proceed in as ethical and correct a way as possible, so if it is something that we have missed, I hope the Data Inspectorate catches it up, says Elisabet.