Far-right thugs deserve to see justice, but Westminster must not use the riots to push through dystopian digital measures, writes Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch
Our response to the riots risks digital dystopia
These have been dark days for Britain. The shocking scenes of violence and racism following the Southport stabbings are unforgettable. Watching footage of Britons setting fire and blocking exits to hotels accommodating homeless men, women and children seeking asylum, while scores of people stood by and calmly filmed this savagery on their phones, is a revelatory moment. So too are the scenes of Nazi salutes and anti-Semitic placards at Palestine demonstrations on London streets. Life has been breathed into a new racism that has, in some pockets of our country, killed every ounce of instinctive human empathy and every British value that these individuals should have.
We must understand how this happened and ensure it never happens again. The policy responses currently being made in Westminster will have a very long life span. And it’s extremely concerning that the Prime Minister reached for the digital authoritarian playbook – lucrative, ineffective but modern-sounding policies that pay AI contractors to expand digital control.
Big Brother is watching you
Sir Keir Starmer vowed to increase facial recognition cameras across the country. Londoners will be familiar with this surveillance, as the Met police has been controversially experimenting with it recently. Not many people outside of London and Beijing are familiar with it though – this extreme mass surveillance tech is not used within the democratic world and new laws broadly prohibit its use across the EU.
Live facial recognition won’t be of any use in riots where thugs wear masks and police, equipped with shields and batons, focus on crowd control rather than software. It could be used to stop people going to gatherings – but that means installing it at transport hubs where up to millions of innocent people would be subject to constant unconsented identity scans, turning our faces into barcodes. And who else could be stopped from travelling? There is no specific law permitting or restricting how police use facial recognition – and, so far, the tech has a 74 per cent misidentification rate.
We all want violence punished. But anyone who thinks such a dangerous technology like mass AI facial recognition will be restricted to violent thugs is wrong.
The Met’s first uses of facial recognition were at Notting Hill Carnival, scanning thousands of innocent people two years running to make only one arrest, casting an Orwellian shadow over London’s biggest celebration. Police have used facial recognition at peaceful protests, like the anti-arms fair, searching not for criminals but for “people of interest”.
If the legacy of these shameful riots is yet more intrusive surveillance in London and across the UK, the government risks eroding our British democratic traditions at the mercy of a mindless minority.
Free speech must not be sacrificed
On Friday, London Mayor Sadiq Khan called for a review of the Online Safety Act, adding to calls for new online censorship powers.
What does he think people can lawfully say now that should be banned?
Already, speech that is criminal offline – like inciting violence and race hatred – is rightly illegal online. People who encouraged violence online are now being prosecuted.
Free speech is the lifeblood of democracy – we’d do better to defend it than to sacrifice it for thugs.
Cause for hope
It’s important to remember that there is much more light and harmony than darkness and discord in our city, and our country. My recommendation is a book by one of the guiding lights for human rights in Britain, Shami Chakrabarti. In these troubled times, we have something to learn from the lawyer once described by the Sun as “the most dangerous woman in Britain” for defending universal human rights as Liberty’s director in the counter-terror years. Her new book “Human Rights: The Case for the Defence” is an essential guide to the role of human rights in modern Britain and why they matter for everyone now more than ever.