UK New Facial recognition cams.. tick Crossdresser..??

The UK government today announced plans to introduce more facial recognition cameras.

It got me thinking — if I go out as Davina, would the cameras recognise male me underneath all the hair, makeup, and heels?

Honestly, I can’t recognise male me when I’m fully done up.

I’ve looked at photos of Davina and thought, “No way is that me" But AI is a different beast entirely.

How It Works

Facial recognition doesn’t really care if you’ve swapped your jeans for a cocktail dress.

It maps out points and proportions on your face that don’t change much:

• The shape and angles of your bones (especially cheekbones, jawline, and brow)

• How far apart your eyes are and where they sit

• Your nose’s shape and position

• The distances between features

These “landmarks” get turned into a kind of facial fingerprint.

Hair colour, makeup, and even facial hair are just… decoration.

My phone AI isn't clever enough to unlock my phone when I try to unlock it with facial recognition as Davina, so these street cameras and the software behind them must be really good.

Can Makeup Fool It?

Sometimes, yes — but not as easily as we might hope.

Heavy contouring, wigs, false lashes, or glasses can make the algorithm less confident.

Lighting, camera quality, and camera angle can also throw it off.

But if the tech is high-grade, it can still match Davina to my male self with uncomfortable accuracy.

The Strange Reality

It’s a strange feeling — knowing that a human stranger might not recognise me as Davina, but a computer could.

In some ways it’s reassuring: if I ever vanished, they’d find me whether I’m in jeans or a sequin dress. But it’s also a little eerie.

And then there’s the paranoid thought… what if these cameras aren’t just identifying people, but quietly logging what they’re doing and how they’re dressed and how they behave?

A little tag somewhere in a government database:

Name: [redacted] – Spotted at 14:37 wearing blonde wig, red lipstick, and very nice heels - Online check clarified as "Davina Legs"- Crossdresser - Works for [redacted] - home address [redacted] - Married to [redacted] etc etc.

And who knows — given my online activity, blog writing, and occasional photo uploads — maybe I’m already labelled somewhere in a quiet government file as “crossdresser”.

So I guess 1084 the novel wasn't far off was it the way things are currently and the way we're heading - I.D. Cards next..

Davina