Police in Denmark to implement facial recognition technology to combat violent crimes

The decision comes after recent increases in violent crimes in Copenhagen involving gangs from neighbouring Sweden.

Transcript

00:00Police authorities in Denmark say facial recognition technology will be used in dealing with gang-related violence in the country.

00:08The announcement came at a meeting between Denmark's national police commissioner and justice minister.

00:14It follows the recent increases in violent crimes in Copenhagen that involved gangs from neighboring Sweden.

00:22If you have a picture of a suspect, it means that you would be able to run that face or that object you were in

00:30through this digital tool, which would be able to search for tens of thousands of hours of video material

00:42so that you can either prevent an attack or at least find the perpetrator quickly.

00:46A well-suited face photo is actually a biometric trace almost on the same foot with a fingerprint.

00:50The fingerprints we record, we run electronically against our fingerprint register.

00:54No one asks questions about that.

00:56No one demands that we sit manually and go through 150,000 fingerprints to see what we have found.

01:01We don't have that option on photos.

01:03You could imagine, if there was political backing for it, that you could do it like that.

01:08Some parties have vowed to oppose the technology on principle.