Police use of live facial recognition technology

This debate pack contains background information on the police use of live facial recognition (LFR) technology. It also includes relevant Parliamentary material and suggested further reading materials which Members might find useful in preparation for this debate.

What is live facial recognition?

Live facial recognition (LFR) technology uses live video footage of crowds passing a camera and automatically compares their images against a police database of people on a “watch list”. Following a possible LFR alert, a police officer will decide whether action should be taken to arrest an individual.

LFR is different from the more commonly used Retrospective Facial Recognition (RFR), which enables police to use still images (e.g. CCTV footage) to search against custody images on the Police National Database using facial recognition software. The police use of RFR is not covered in this briefing.

How is it used in England and Wales?

It is an operational decision for individual police forces in England and Wales whether to use LFR.

Since the Metropolitan Police conducted ten trials of the technology between 2016 and 2018, six police forces – the Metropolitan Police, South Wales Police, Northamptonshire Police, Bedfordshire Police, Hampshire Police and Essex Police – have used LFR in England and Wales to date. The technology has been deployed at the Coronation of HM King Charles III, music concerts, major sporting events, Notting Hill Carnival and in shopping centres.

In comparison, LFR technology has not been used in Scotland or Northern Ireland.

There are no official statistics on the use of LFR in England and Wales, though its use appears to be increasing. For example, according to data compiled by a group of London Assembly Members, the Metropolitan Police used LFR 117 times between January 2024 and August 2024, compared with 32 times between 2020 and 2023.

Why has it generated controversy?

Some have also criticised the accuracy of the technology and its impact on civil liberties.

Some studies have also shown that there is a racial bias in the way the LFR computer generates matches. This has resulted in Black men being more likely to be incorrectly matched with watch list individuals because of bias in computer learning from available datasets. Some have argued that there is a risk of this technology “perpetuating existing disproportionate policing practices” and “exacerbating racial profiling and discrimination”.

How is it regulated?

There is no dedicated legislation in the UK on the use of facial recognition technologies. Instead, LFR use by law enforcement is regulated by common law and statutes such as the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984, the Human Rights Act 1998, Equality Act 2010, UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

The Home Office states that facial recognition use is “strictly governed by data protection, equality, and human rights laws, and can only be used for a policing purpose where it is necessary and proportionate. However, some human rights and civil liberties organisations believe that the legal and oversight framework for LFR in England and Wales is too weak.

In the EU, the European Parliament recently introduced rules heavily restricting the use of LFR through the Artificial Intelligence Act 2024 (AIA). The act prohibits the use of LFR in publicly accessible spaces for the purposes of law enforcement, unless such use is “strictly necessary” to search for specific suspects, missing persons, or victims of exploitation, or to prevent threats of terrorism or physical safety of people. A judicial authority or an independent administrative authority must also grant authorisation before LFR can be deployed by the police.

In an open letter to the Prime Minister in August 2024, several human rights and civil liberties organisations suggested that following the new restrictions introduced in the EU, England and Wales could become “an outlier in the democratic world” should police forces continue to increase their use of LFR.