It's cheap and efficient to wear a mask, where it is the taxpayer's money being wasted on facial recognition systems, and on top of that: cameras don't prevent, and are not even being used to prosecute criminals, there are not enough resources to do that, as someone else already pointed it out:

> You only have to look at the widespread increase in CCTV use in Britain. Now when you get mugged in London the police can get you a little video of your hooded attackers for posterity. Except they only have time to go through the recordings if you got murdered, otherwise you will just get a crime number.

But hey, have fun with illusion of safety, deprived freedom and a complete waste of money.