Privacy concerns raised over Australian-first live AI police face scanning trial An Australian-first trial of live AI facial recognition technology by a police force has been criticised by privacy experts and legal advocates. The mass AI surveillance pilot has been rolled out in Western Australia and is being closely watched by law enforcement agencies across the country. Since the trial began in June, cameras linked to facial recognition software have scanned more than 130,000 people in Perth and Fremantle, comparing their faces against a police watchlist in real time. Western Australian police say the results are promising but questions have been raised about an opaque watchlist and trial site locations that some say may target First Nations people. In June, the Western Australian Police announced it would be the first police force to use live facial recognition technology on the public. Facial recognition technology has become increasingly commonplace. It includes simpler one-to-one systems that check whether a single face matches a particular identity, like those used to unlock a mobile phone. It also includes the more complex one-to-many systems like those used in Bunnings to compare faces of customers against a database of people suspected of activity including theft or abuse of staff. Since June, WA Police have been trialling that more complex type of system. Using tech company NEC's Neoface m40 product, a pilot program scanned more than 130,000 faces around Perth and Fremantle in the first week of the trial. It compared their faces against a watchlist of about 4,000 people, including people accused of serious offences, people who are missing, and people who may pose a risk to themselves or others, police said. WA Police celebrated the early results from the trial, which resulted in 33 alerts and 18 arrests. Of the faces scanned in the first