"With this, we can obtain real-time feeds from police surveillance cameras, including commercial facilities that cooperate with the police, as well as many transportation hubs..."
After confirming that the images on the screens had stabilized, Makino Yosuke let out a sigh of relief. His confident smile returned as he settled before his console and began operating the main system.
As he selected and zoomed in, the feeds enlarged one by one. Then, at his command, the system scanned the clear facial data captured in the footage.
Before long, basic information surfaced on the screens alongside the facial recognition results.
Many employees in the control center smiled with satisfaction or pride, but neither Hitoshi Shiratori nor Kuroda Hyoe, who had been watching the scene all along, showed the slightest hint of a smile.
The people walking through the streets in the surveillance footage probably had no idea that, at that very moment, a facility submerged beneath the sea thousands of miles away was using a fleeting glimpse from an electronic eye to retrieve and extract details of their lives, ready to use them in solving a criminal investigation at any time.
It was not that there was anything inherently wrong with this technology or surveillance intended to protect public safety. But if the footage being shown now truly leaked to the public, the resulting uproar would be far beyond the control of this small security center.
Not everyone in every country was satisfied with where they lived, and there were plenty of people who did not want the government using their private data.
In certain places where freedom had gone a little too far, all it would take was one of the several dozen people sitting here to reveal the specifics to the media. The tide of public opinion, and perhaps