$34m blown in top criminal intelligence agency's facial recognition project

Australia's top criminal intelligence agency has blown $34 million of its taxpayer-funded budget on a failed facial recognition project, earning a stinging rebuke for poor management, record keeping and an at-times dysfunctional culture

"Significant failures" of management, governance, and communication at the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) have been detailed in a review of its biometric identification services (BIS) project, conducted by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO).

source
More government screw ups, which I guess in this case should be happy about as it means we are still not quite yet in a full blown police surveillance state, is it comforting to anyone knowing our government is pressing forward to get us all under the watchful eye of big brother ?

From another source

Indeed, when the technology was used in the 2017 Champions League final, it yielded a 92% rate of false positives.

And a recent trial by London police at a Six Nations rugby match yielded an even lower hit-rate, generating 104 “alerts”, of which 102 were false.

This is like some sick comedy 102 flase alerts from 104 , bloody hell this is going ripe for abuse, the money wasted on such a failed system is one thing, what about the potential for abuse is what worries me, whats the bet if they cant perfect the system they will just use it anyway, who needs plant drugs on a suspect when they can just falsely identify them and lock em up that way.

Welcome to the new age indeed...

Lol.

They didn't screw up. Guaranteed it works but they just tell the masses that it didnt to keep them in the dark.

originally posted by: Carcharadon
Lol.

They didn't screw up. Guaranteed it works but they just tell the masses that it didnt to keep them in the dark.

Perhaps, seems a little redundant though why tell us anything at all? I would have thought they would just push it through without so much as a whisper.

a reply to: Carcharadon

I agree with you %100. I read here on ATS years ago that Walmart had facial recognition many years ago. They could see people that had been convinced of stealing and all.

I will admit I know absolutely nothing about what is going on in Australia, but I consider them good first cousins that I have zero problems with. (They have always had our back, Iraq, Afghanistan ect)

But a %92 faluire rate? lol it's 2019. Who could possibly believe that. Don't buy that for a milisecond. Odds are it has the highest success rate in history.

If it wasn''t such a humungous failure I doubt there would be the baying of wolves at the door for wasting 34million and as the project has now been abandoned I'd say they screwed up. It looks like the company was having a lot of problems/issues especially with staff and the auditors will want to know where every last penny went and they sure as hell won't rest till they do

a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

That's a lot of taxpayer money to waste on a system that fails 90% of the time. It doesn't make sense even when you factor in how poorly governments run many programs. It either worked too well or the money went elsewhere or better yet picture this:

The lead programmer storms into the ACIC division leader's office gasping for breath. He's composes himself long enough to mutter "Sir, we just got a facial hit on Al Qaeda leader Mohammed al-Zawahiri!!! He's here in Australia! The system has confirmed an 87% match and we're pulling footage from all local CCTV cameras, Sir!

The division leader and the programmer nearly collide in the doorway as they frantically exit the office and begin racing down the long corridor which leads to the "Operational Command Center". The programmer reaches the door first. He quickly swipes his badge, keys in his daily-changing 24 digit code, while removing his glasses to initiate the retinal scan needed to gain access to what lies beyond the door.

The room is an awe-inspiring vision of technological achievement much larger than one would expect given the layout of the building. Immediately, two giant screens hanging from the ceiling catch your eyes as they obstruct the nearly 100ft wide rear wall. The division leader ignores the nearly 65-person crew frantically working at their stations and moving between areas discussing the information contained within the confidential folders they're holding. His focus remains fixed on the left screen which now shows a flashing 91% probability match..

He screams in his usual gruff tone.."Get me that camera footage people! I need eyes on the target and a strike team assembled in that area now..and I MEAN NOW!" No time had passed when the lead programmer spoke up "Sir, we have visual confirmation on the target. Pulling it up now!"

The engineers, technicians, and analysts look up in anticipation to the large screen located to the right of the now flashing 94% probability match screen. The image appears pixelated but clears quickly. The room falls eeriely silent as...

An unmistakable image of a kangaroo appears on the oversized screen on the right as the left screen now flashes a 100% identity confirmed.

That was around the 12 million dollar mark..

a reply to: Anathros

I'm still laughing as I type this, , I guess though it's we the people that are stupid we elect these clowns.

Apparently ACICs technology partner is/was NEC. They use a system called NeoFace and from what I could gather the city of Irving, TX used it aswell. Source

I can't really find any confirmation of this other then NEC itself, but it is claimed that the system has a pretty good recognition rate. Maybe the Australians use another system but I highly doubt it. Either NEC is full of it and the Irving police department is in on it. Or the aussies mismanaged an otherwise decent system of facial recognition

a reply to: Jubei42

I was wondering about this,ive read about other systems that are apparently very effective and accurate, someone out there is telling fibs, I'm really not sure what I believe at this point, but my gut tells me the technology is really flawed.