Sydney Criminal Lawyer's Paul Gregoire unpacks the implications of Peter Dutton's proposed nationwide facial recognition system. 

This system, known as the Capability, which would link up all federal and state citizen photo identification databases, so law enforcement could identify individuals in CCTV images in real time.

Dutton’s legislation in this regard was never voted through parliament. And various appraisals of the technology have found it is hopelessly flawed, especially when it comes to misidentifying people of colour and women. In fact, UK police found it misidentified subjects 95 percent of the time.

Former NSWCCL President Pauline Wright told Sydney Criminal Lawyers, "Collecting sensitive information without consent is cause for concern – it’s not just theoretical – because that sort of information can be replicated and used for identity theft.” 

“We don’t have any control over that information once it has been scrapped off the internet. We have no control over what happens with it, how securely it’s kept, the purposes it’s put to and whether any of those uses are legitimate,” she added, just after the OAIC released its determination.

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