Cities use surveillance systems that identify potential ‘terrorists’ with facial recognition

Raw Story

It sounds like something from the film Minority Report: a CCTV surveillance system that recognises people from their face or walk and analyses whether they might be about to commit a terrorist or criminal act. But Trapwire is real and, according to documents released online by WikiLeaks last week, is being used in a number of countries to try to monitor people and threats. Founded by former CIA agents, Trapwire uses data from a network of CCTV systems and numberplate readers to figure out the threat level in huge numbers of locations. That means security officials can “focus on the highest priorities first, taking a proactive and collaborative approach to defence against attacks,” say its creators.