‘Big Brother’ goes underground: Moscow metro to equip 1,500 train cars with facial recognition by end of year

Trains on Moscow’s vast subway network will be fitted with surveillance cameras linked to facial recognition systems, according to a tender from Moscow’s mayoral office.

Media reports suggest that the Moscow authorities will spend 1.4 billion rubles ($20 million) on equipping around a quarter of the system’s carriages. They plan to install eight cameras in each car, all with the ability to distinguish faces. By the end of the year, 1,500 will be fully kitted out.

Moscow already has a vast facial recognition system throughout the city. During the Covid-19 quarantine, the city’s CCTV cameras were used to track people violating self-isolation orders or evading other coronavirus-related measures.

In January 2020, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin announced that the metro facial recognition system would be implemented by September 1, enabling “people on the wanted list” to be recognized in a split second.

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