Cops turn Download Festival into an Orwellian Spy Paradise

‘As if being ankle deep in muddy field, surrounded by pretend hippies seemingly re-enacting highlights of the Battle of Waterloo was bad enough, attendees of the aptly named Download Festival will be subjected to a new police facial recognition system, and surveillance of their onsite location and expenditure via the debut of RFID wristbands.

The debut surveillance technologies are a new facial recognition system being rolled out by Leicestershire Police, and Download’s own RFID wristbands, provided by German RFID specialists YouChip.

Leicestershire Police have been trialling NEC Corporation’s NeoFace facial recognition system since April 2014, though only announced the trial in July of that year, and seem to have been delighted with its results to date.’

Read more: Cops turn Download Festival into an Orwellian Spy Paradise