MINISTERS are looking at facial recognition cameras used by authoritarian states like China as part of the push to create “virtual jails”, The Sun can reveal.
The plan is being worked up to ease pressure on crammed prisons but risks a row with privacy campaigners.
Facial recognition cameras could be used to monitor released prisoners[/caption]
Senior government sources said cutting-edge technology could be deployed to monitor offenders released into the community.
An insider said: “We need to learn from the surveillance states who spy on their own citizens and use the same tactics with our criminals.”
As well as keeping tabs on lags with state-of-the-art cameras, the “virtual prisons” would likely include a mass rollout of GPS tags.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood yesterday said that punishment outside prison can be “more restrictive” than life behind bars.
She told the Commons: “Those under home detention curfews are in practice under a form of house arrest, with a tag on their ankle, and a censor in their home, they are placed under curfews, generally for 12 hours each day.
“And should they break that curfew they can be picked up and if needs be, locked up.
“In some ways, punishment outside a prison can be even more restrictive than prison.
“It is a sad fact that in many of our prisons today, a drinker can all too easily procure a drink.
“On a sobriety tag, however, with their sweat measured every 30 minutes and a 97 per cent compliance rate their teetotalism is almost as strict as mine.”
