‘Is this the best you have?’
‘’Fraid so.’
Tom Gorman, the lead technician in the Digital Services Division of GMP, raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, we may get a hit or we may not. But first I have to check whether we have permission to use this photograph.’
‘The photographer sent it to us allowing all uses.’
‘Great, make sure you send me the paperwork.’
‘Covering your arse?’
‘Always. First thing they teach you in GMP. Now, let me scan it in and we’ll log on to the PND to do a search comparison.’
He loaded the photograph into a machine, which immediately began producing a startling array of clicks and whirrs.
‘Thank God it isn’t video footage.’
‘Why? Does it take too long to load?’
Tom laughed. ‘Nah, it’s easier. Just it’s a bit of a grey area for us.’
‘Grey area?’
‘We were caught in 2018 using live facial recognition technology to look at all the people who visited the Trafford Centre over a period of six months.’
‘What? How many people?’
‘Well, a rough guess is about thirty million people visit the centre each year…’
‘So we will have captured fifteen million people?’
‘Yeah, roughly.’
‘And they hadn’t committed any crime?’
‘Not that we know of. Then again, we don’t know if this guy has, until we run him through the database.’ He pointed to the man’s face slowly appearing on a screen as it was scanned in.
‘It’s been stopped now, hasn’t it? Live facial recognition screening, I mean.’
‘Well, officially GMP doesn’t use it, but we do have access to the national database, which includes images from other times when it was used. Twenty-five million pictures on it now,’ he said proudly, ‘even though the High Court declared it unlawful to retain images of people arrested or questioned but who were never charged. Theresa May, remember her? When she was home secretary she required us to delete images from the database, but only on application from unconvicted persons.’
‘But how do I know I’m on the database?’
‘You don’t. You can only apply to have your image deleted if you are on the database, but nobody knows whether their face has been captured or not. It’s such a great catch-22, only Theresa May could have come up with it. You’re probably on it.’
‘Me? What about you?’
‘Of course I am. Where do you think they store our staff photos?’
‘Some of these people have not committed any crime?’
‘Most of them.’
‘It’s a bit like the Tom Cruise movie. What was it called?’
‘You mean Minority Report?’
‘A great sci-fi movie.’
‘Not so sci-fi any more. The Met introduced live video facial recognition in early 2020. And where the Met leads, the rest of us follow. It’s only a matter of time.’
‘Amazing.’
‘You don’t know the half of it. The technology was developed by the Japanese and can compare about three hundred images a second, eighteen thousand faces a minute.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Facial images are only the first in the new wave of biometrics. You know, the police are already experimenting with voice-recognition technology and others such as iris, gait and vein analysis are commercially available.’
‘You mean we could identify somebody by the way he walks?’
Tom Gorman stopped pressing the keys on his computer for a second. His arm shot straight up in the air and he began singing Stayin’ Alive.
‘The Bee Gees will be turning over in their graves. I’d stick to the day job if I were you.’
He returned to the keyboard and tapped on a few keys. ‘Right, we’re set, connected to the PND. Now we just let the algorithms go to work and see if we get a match.’
‘How long will it take?’
‘How long’s a piece of string? Fancy a coffee while this is working? I could murder a cheese toastie.’