Latest news with #PND
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
PND junior Ava Lafollette holds impressive record, could score 50 goals this season
PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD/WYZZ) — It continues to be a productive season for Ava Lafollette. The junior forward enters the postseason with 46 goals in 22 games. No player, male or female, has scored more goals in a single soccer season at Notre Dame. She didn't even know she was close to the record. 'When coach told us that I made the scoring record it was a great feeling,' said LaFollette. 'Last year I only scored 26 goals. I have almost doubled that and we're not done. We have all the postseason to go, hopefully we make it back to state.' The previous record for goals in season at Notre Dame was 41, shared by Noah Madrigal (2019) and Kayden Hudson (2024). 'I don't know if I've seen a girl more elite in putting the ball in the back of the net,' said PND girls soccer coach Ben Ralf. 'Getting any space, she makes defenders pay for letting her get open.' The scouting report is out an on most nights, Lafollette is drawing two defenders, sometimes three. Yet she is still able to generate offense for the Irish (20-1-1). She knows she has to earn her shots on goal. 'If I get the ball to my feet, I can turn and score. If I get it on top, with my speed I can beat them and score,' said Lafollette. 'I think there's various ways I've scored all season. I think that's helping me score more goals.' Lafollette isn't thinking too much about the scoring record now as she's hoping to get the Irish back to state. PND finished third at state a year ago and this season they'd like to get to that state championship game. 'Even though we still won third place, everyone had that feeling of guilt. We wish we would have won that (semifinal) game,' Lafollette said. 'We have experience going to state. If we give it our all the whole 80 minutes, then we can pull it off.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Senior catcher Lawson Alwan doesn't mind doing the dirty work at Notre Dame
PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD/WYZZ) – Senior Lawson Alwan knows his days on the baseball field at Notre Dame are numbered. And that number is getting smaller. 'I feel like over the last three of four years, every day I've been up here from 7 in the morning to 7 at night. It's crazy. It's weird,' said Alwan. 'I don't think it has hit me yet. I don't know when it'll hit me.' Alwan, who will graduate from high school next month, has been a fixture on Notre Dame athletic fields for four years. He was a captain for both the baseball and football teams this year. He's a guy who has never taken the easy way out, playing some of the hardest positions on his teams. He's a standout catcher in baseball and starred as a fullback on the football team, where he also played linebacker and was the team's kicker. In a playoff game at Rochester last November, he blocked a kick, scored a touchdown, and made an extra point in the final 1:38 to help his Irish win. 'Fullback, that's the gritty work. I was blocking or getting the ball. I have to do my job every play,' said Alwan. 'Same with being the catcher. Every play, I'm involved. It's important to me.' PND won five baseball games Alwan's freshman year. Last season, he helped the Irish win a regional and advance to sectionals. And he's not just the guy tackling the dirty jobs on the field. He's also willing to do the dirty work away from the actoin. Long after the final out of Saturday's one-run loss to Dee-Mack, Alwan grabbed a broom and was sweeping out the dugout. 'Even off the field, you don't realize the type of person he is. Why is he the last person in the locker room every night? He's in their doing laundry for the entire team. I learned that a couple years ago,' said Notre Dame baseball coach Jon Lowry. 'What kind of guy, who plays the hardest positions, is also doing laundry for his teammates? He's willing to do the work, no matter what the work is.' It's just the way Alwan wants it. 'That's how I'd have it. I want these guys to trust me. I trust every one of them,' said Alwan. 'That's what a team is all about.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Telegraph
01-04-2025
- Telegraph
Police told not to close investigations until they have used facial recognition
Police have been told to use facial recognition searches in every criminal investigation, The Telegraph can reveal. The independent police inspectorate has urged forces to 'fully exploit' the technology after finding that some were using it more than others. It comes as a Telegraph investigation reveals the true scale of police use of facial recognition, with forces conducting searches on the public every two minutes. Officers are encouraged to obtain pictures of their targets – including witnesses and victims – from social media, doorbell footage and CCTV, and search them against the vast police national database (PND). Police could be able to check driving licence photographs in future under plans to give police access to DVLA information, although the Home Office says it is not changing the law for that purpose. Facial recognition technology is not subject to national guidance from either the Home Office or the College of Policing, which provides advice to police on conducting investigations. The technology, introduced to catch serious and violent offenders, is now most often used for low-level investigations. The reliance on digital technology has increased as police forces across the country cut officer numbers to reduce costs. His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services (HMIFRS) praised those forces that carried out the most searches in a recent report, and recommended that no investigation should be closed until all images had been cross-checked against available databases. The inspectors' most recent report said that by June, forces should introduce a new rule 'stating that when an image exists, investigators should search it against the PND and any other relevant databases before their force closes an investigation'. Forces can adopt the recommendations at their own discretion. Privacy concerns The unprecedented use of facial recognition will be welcomed by some as a way of reducing time-consuming investigations, but privacy concerns have prompted MPs, regulators and civil liberties campaigners to urge the Government to impose new rules regulating its use by police. The Telegraph found that one force, Essex Police, used the technology for 16 investigations into what was later determined 'non-crime'. The force said it had used facial recognition for investigations that concluded that no crime had been committed. Essex Police was criticised last year over its investigation into Allison Pearson, a Telegraph columnist, for remarks she posted online. The investigation was later dropped. Last year officers ran more than a quarter of a million 'retrospective' facial recognition searches in the UK, including 30,000 by the Metropolitan Police alone – more than ten times the Met's figure for 2019. Retrospective facial recognition can use images obtained from a range of sources, including CCTV, mobile phone footage, dashcam or doorbell cameras or social media. Police obtain the images during their investigations and then run them against a vast police database to look for a possible match. They can then approach the individual, without revealing that their image has been searched to find a biometric 'match'. Home Office officials describe facial recognition as a 'key tool' for the police to identify suspects more quickly and accurately. A search can cut the length of an 'identification' from around two weeks to just minutes. The main resource available to forces is the PND, which collates records from 55 different agencies and holds 6.2 billion searchable records as well as millions of photographs and images. Police are already allowed to search the passport database, but are required to ask for permission from the Government each time. While live facial recognition cameras on British high streets have generated controversy, retrospective searches are far more commonplace and useful to police. Some forces, including the Met, have bought private facial recognition software from the US to run more accurate searches. Although facial recognition was first billed as a tool to catch serious offenders, including murderers and terrorists, data obtained under freedom of information laws by The Telegraph and Big Brother Watch shows it is now used to track anti-social behaviour, fly-tipping and mail theft. Two forces – Humberside and Dyfed-Powys – said they had used the technology for 'level one' intelligence gathering by local policing. Most forces refused to reveal a detailed breakdown of how they had used the tool. The Telegraph can also reveal that the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is investigating how police are using the software amid concerns that 'large amounts of sensitive personal data' have not been processed 'responsibly' and 'appropriately'. An ICO spokesman said: 'People must be able to trust that technology is being used responsibly, and we are committed to ensuring appropriate use and improving public confidence about the safeguards surrounding its use.' The controversial expansion of facial recognition has also prompted fresh privacy concerns from MPs and civil society groups. The technology was backed by the previous Conservative government, but Chris Philp, the former policing minister, said he was now concerned about how it was being used. 'There are clear guidelines about how facial recognition should be deployed,' he said. 'Reports of misuse are deeply concerning and it should certainly never be used for non-crime investigations – in fact, non-crimes should not be investigated at all. 'Where used appropriately, new technology like this will be transformational for police forces suffering severe cuts under Labour.' Unlike most other investigatory tools used by police, there are no national guidelines or policies that officers must follow. The Home Office said that police were required to follow laws that govern personal data and privacy, including the Data Protection Act, Equality Act and Human Rights Act 1998. But Big Brother Watch, the civil liberties campaign group, said the unfettered expansion of facial recognition was a 'scandal'. 'Police use of facial recognition scanning to identify people in a 'non-crime investigation' is deeply Orwellian and demonstrates how police use of this technology is dangerously off the leash,' said Madeleine Stone, a spokesman for the group. 'We urgently need a democratic, lawful approach to the role of retrospective facial recognition in the UK. Without this, police forces should not be using this intrusive technology at all.' Sir Keir Starmer called for a 'wider deployment of facial recognition technology' after riots across the UK last year, when it was used to identify protesters. There is currently no statutory oversight of the tools available to police because the Government's independent biometric and surveillance commissioner position is vacant. Prof Fraser Sampson, a former holder of that role, warned in an article for The Telegraph that 'unlimited expansion' of facial recognition could see it deployed to monitor protests and industrial disputes where no crime had been committed. 'Surveillance is no longer about where the police put their cameras; it is about what the state does with the images from everyone's cameras,' he said. 'Uploaded selfies, pictures from dashcams, doorbells and social media posts generate incalculable numbers of facial images, all of which are accessible in perpetuity and can be searched against retrospectively.' Calls for guidance to prevent police misuse Grant Shapps, a former home and defence secretary, called for national guidance on facial recognition to prevent 'misuse' by police. He said: 'Deploying [facial recognition] for minor non-crime incidents risks undermining public trust and eroding civil liberties. 'The right to privacy is a cornerstone of our democracy, and we must never allow convenience or expediency to trump fundamental freedoms. I would support clear national guidelines to prevent the misuse of this powerful technology.' A Home Office spokesman said: 'Facial recognition is an important tool in modern policing that can identify offenders more quickly and accurately, with many serious criminals having been brought to justice through its use. 'All police forces using this technology are required to comply with existing legislation that protects people's right to privacy, but we will continue to work with experts in this field, and other interested stakeholders, to ensure that appropriate safeguards are always in place. 'We will set out our plans for the future use of facial recognition technology, alongside broader policing reforms, in the coming months.' A National Police Chiefs' Council spokesperson said: 'We welcome the recommendation from HMICFRS. 'Retrospective facial recognition is an extremely accurate and invaluable tool that has been used by police for a number of years to great effect. 'Where there are reasonable lines of enquiry and a clear policing purpose, we encourage officers to use every tool at their disposal to assist in their investigations, including retrospective facial recognition.' Why we should care about retrospective facial recognition By Fraser Sampson When I was preparing my annual report to parliament as Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner in 2022, an official said to me 'why do we care about retrospective facial recognition? Everyone's concerned about live'. There are many reasons why we should care, and the freedom of information requests published this week reveal several. The first reason is that police use of any facial recognition technology (FRT) – retrospective, live or predictive – is an extension of biometrics and that demands close and consistent attention. In all its uses of intrusive biometric technology, the state must be accountable. A second reason is that the placement of live facial recognition cameras has dominated the public space surveillance debate, but surveillance is no longer about where the police put their cameras; it is about what the state does with the images from everyone's cameras. Uploaded selfies, pictures from dashcams, doorbells and social media posts generate incalculable numbers of facial images, all of which are accessible in perpetuity and can be searched against retrospectively. When it needed a human to do it, comparing even a handful of images was a resourcing decision, balancing effort and expense against likely outcome. With AI-enabled technology, mass matching has become cheap, quick and easy, and the discretion has evaporated. The old adage about looking for needles in haystacks will make no sense to the next surveillance generation. The search is a mouse click and the principal risk – to the police and the public – lies in not doing it. There are further reasons why we should care about retrospective recognition. Photographs of convicted people are an obvious source of images for matching, but the state has other large collections of our faces. The UK driver's licence and passport databases have millions of high-quality images that can be used for retrospective matching, but we submitted them because we wanted to drive on a road or leave the country, rather than for a criminal justice purpose. More interconnected state databases exist and new ones will emerge, sometimes shared with other countries. Another reason to care is that, without the signage, visible cameras and auto-deletion of live FRT, retrospective matching is invisible to the citizen. While the UK's regulation of covert surveillance is the gold standard, retrospective recognition takes place outside any formal framework, which seems at odds with the safeguards for surveillance generally. Is live FRT really the conjuror's left hand, distracting our attention while intrusive retrospective matching takes place on an industrial scale out of view? Opponents of the technology might suggest so: rebutting their claims will rely on police chiefs providing the data needed to allow proper challenge, as some have done. But surely the lawful, proportionate and justified use of police biometrics is too important to be left to individual statutory requests? The police also need to be better at making their case. Freedom of information responses from Police Scotland show that they do not even collect the data needed to assure themselves of its legitimate use. Increasingly, there will be cases where the public expect the police to use retrospective facial capabilities – identifying victims and offenders in child sexual abuse image cases for example – and the police will find themselves explaining any decisions not to use the technology. That will also need reliable and consistent performance data. I have heard some surprisingly poor arguments against the need for scrutiny of this technology from some policing leaders: 'if you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to worry about' (a stunningly misconceived observation), 'it's just photography' (presumably in the same way that DNA profiling is 'just chemistry'). This simply reinforces the need for greater prescription. Unlimited expansion of the technology also provides a compelling reason to care about it. Finding suspects is one thing but the technology is clearly being used in non-criminal incidents, raising questions around its boundaries and scope. How will it be used for monitoring public gatherings, attendance at protests, industrial disputes or during pandemic lockdowns? What contribution will it make to predictive policing? These are not hypothetical questions: when the College of Policing says the technology can be legitimately used to find 'potential witnesses', its reach is unconstrained – I cannot think of a living individual to whom that definition would not apply right now. Policing is about connecting the dots and, as Steve Jobs said, you can only do that by looking backwards. That is precisely what retrospective facial recognition does, making it an indispensable crime-fighting tool. Enabling the police to use it with the trust and support of the public is perhaps the overriding reason why we should care about retrospective facial recognition.
BBC News
25-03-2025
- BBC News
Custody photos too poor for facial recognition technology
Photos taken of suspects arrested in Scotland are often too low quality to be used by facial recognition technology, a report has confirmed. The Scottish Biometrics Commissioner and His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) raised concerns about the quality of custody images being added to national databases. Commissioner Dr Brian Plastow said a "sizeable proportion" of those taken between 2019 and 2024 are of such low quality they are unsuitable for software used across the UK to link suspects to other crimes. Police Scotland said they were already aware of this issue and would consider recommendations in the report. Police forces across the UK upload images of everyone they arrest to the Police National Database (PND), which allows officers to detect potential matches with photographs of suspects captured and uploaded from sources including video doorbells and intelligence sharing system can lead to a person arrested for one crime being linked to numerous unsolved crimes. While custody photographs remain mostly low-quality, Police Scotland will be unable to take part in new facial matching services, including the controversial live facial recognition have previously warned that using live facial recognition on members of the public would be a "radical departure from Police Scotland's fundamental principle of policing by consent."But the report highlighted the problem with the current use of retrospective image search technology (RIST) when the custody images were not adequate. Figures from Police Scotland revealed that a potential match was found in just 2% of RIST it also gave examples of successes in Scotland including the sexual assault of a tourist who was then sent offensive messages and images from the matched the photo from his messaging app to a custody photo taken more than 20 years recognition technology can also be used to compare images on the the Child Abuse Image Database (CAID) to identify victims and perpetrators of online child sexual abuse. Suspects 'not being detected' Dr Plastow said: "While carrying out this assurance review we were informed about the insufficient quality and resolution of Scottish images on the Police Scotland Criminal History System, which affects a portion of custody images captures between 2019-2024."This means a sizeable portion of custody images are not searchable under PND facial search functionality."This gap could mean that people who have had their custody image previously taken, are not being detected on future probe images uploaded by Police Scotland, which could lead to crimes not being detected."The report stated that the force said a "software issue" was causing the custody images to be captured at a lower than recommended minimum images were then being additionally compressed using a technique that left them unsuitable for use with the PND. Dr Plastow added: "Extreme caution must be exercised with any retrospective ICT fix to uncompress these images."If they cannot be fully restored to their original format, the reliability of the data could be significantly compromised."Dr Plastow said there needed to be "transparency, robust governance and independent oversight" when using biometrics. Assistant Chief Constable Steve Johnson said Police Scotland would consider the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner's recommendations in full."Our Biometrics Oversight Board is already aware of this issue and is overseeing work to improve the quality of images taken in custody and the collaboration with Home Office Strategic Facial Matcher Project, which mirrors the recommendations," he said.
Yahoo
01-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Extra Effort: Julia Mingus a driving force at Notre Dame
PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD/WYZZ) — When Julia Mingus decided to go to Notre Dame, she felt confidently the school would help change her life. 'I came to Notre Dame because of the opportunity it offered me for my faith life but also to perform athletically,' the senior said. 'Through the experience here at PND, it is more than I expected.' Now Mingus is helping change the lives of others. She's a standout runner and basketball player who is member of her school's Lumen Christi, where she shares her faith and encourages students to do the same. She's a regular volunteer at school athletic camps and getting ready to study pre-med in college. She's a starter on the state-ranked Irish, who are one win away from a return trip to state. Mingus may be a fierce competitor on the basketball court but she feels like she's one of the school's most approachable students off it. 'I try to keep everybody happy, if that makes sense,' said Mingus. 'I don't like that much conflict.' The Notre Dame say they've seen how their starting point guard has grown into a leader with her teammates and in the school's hallways. 'Personality wise, she is completely different off the court,' said Notre Dame head coach Layne Langholf. 'Nice, accommodating, sweet. But she can turn that switch as a competitor.' Plus she may be the unofficial Uber driver for her teams. Many of her teammates aren't driving yet or have access to a car. That's when Julia steps in. 'During cross country season, I definitely took people places. Team dinners, football games,' said Mingus. 'If you need a ride, just ask me. I'd say, 'Hey guys, if anyone wants to go you can hop in my car.' Now the driven senior is hoping to drive Notre Dame to second straight state championship. The Irish (31-4) play Stillman Valley in the Bureau Valley super-sectional on Monday for the right to go to state. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
