Meet the face of Big Brother

THE New South Wales State Government is quietly compiling a mathematical map of almost every adult's face, sharing information that allows law enforcement to track people by CCTV.

Experts said few people realized their facial features were being recorded in an RTA database of drivers licence photos that the Government has allowed both state and federal police to access. The federal body CrimTrac has asked NSW for its database so it can be mined nationally by police using the facial recognition information contained in it.

University experts in facial recognition said the correct match rate was as low as 90 per cent, meaning the names of people with faces sharing a similar structure to criminals could be returned in searches.

Dr Carolyn Semmler from the University of Adelaide said police wanted to eventually use facial recognition in smart CCTV cameras allowing people to be tracked anywhere there was a camera.