Facial recognition to be expanded across the country in fresh crime crackdown
Ministers have vowed to expand police facial recognition to track down dangerous criminals and are asking people how it should be used to create new laws.
Authorities hope police forces will make greater use of facial recognition technology across the country, with the policing minister saying the expansion will “put more criminals behind bars”.
But human rights activists have called on the government to limit police facial recognition to serious crimes and searches for missing persons.
A 10-week consultation is being launched to gather views on how technology should be regulated and how people’s privacy should be protected. People will also be asked whether they think police access is acceptable (for example, whether officers should have more access to mugshots in certain situations).
The government is also proposing to create a regulator to oversee police use of facial recognition, biometrics and other tools.
Police minister Sarah Jones described facial recognition as the “biggest breakthrough in catching criminals since DNA matching” and said it had already helped catch thousands of criminals.
“We will expand its use so forces can put more criminals behind bars and tackle crime in their communities,” he said.
According to the Home Office, the Metropolitan Police has used facial recognition to make 1,300 arrests in the last two years and found more than 100 registered sex offenders had breached their license conditions.
But the technology has come under criticism, with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) describing the Met Police’s policy on the use of live facial recognition technology as “unlawful” earlier this year.
Rules and safeguards around Britain’s largest police force’s use of the technology are “inadequate” and could have a “chilling effect” on individuals’ rights when used at protests, the equality watchdog said.
Akiko Hart, director of human rights charity Liberty, welcomed the chance to contribute to the government’s consultation but added: “It is disappointing that the Home Office has begun consultations with the promise of increasing its use.”
“For too long police forces have been able to make their own rules and just this week we learned these cameras are being used to target children as young as 12. The government must stop the rapid spread of facial recognition technology and ensure security measures are in place.”
Children are placed on a police watch list if they are missing, wanted for a crime or in connection with a high-risk crime.
Ryan Wain, a senior director at the Tony Blair Institute, praised live facial recognition as a “direct security boost”. He added: “Diffusion must be accelerated; incrementality is the enemy of security.”
The government’s consultations will be used to form the basis of new laws that will govern the technology and are expected to come into force in around two years.
Currently, the legal basis for the use of facial recognition is fragmentary and based on common law, data protection and human rights laws.
Police use three types of facial recognition: retrospective, used to search for images of people arrested in criminal investigations versus images of crime scenes; live, using live video footage of people passing by cameras and comparing their images with a list of wanted persons; and an operator-initiated mobile app that allows officers to check a person’s identity without arresting them.
The Home Office funded facial recognition with £12.6 million last year; £2.8 million has been spent on national live facial recognition, including mobile vans and fixed-location pilots.
Last month, a new fleet of vans was introduced under an expanded pilot program by police forces in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley and Hampshire, joining the Met, South Wales Police and Essex Police in their use.
The Home Office has also spent £6.6 million on the evaluation and adoption of technology this year; this includes £3.9 million to create a national face-matching service, which is currently in testing.
It aims to give police a new way to do back searches and have another national database of custody footage.
The new database is expected to be able to accommodate millions of images, similar to the numbers in the police’s national database.
Susannah Drury, director of policy and development at the charity Missing People, welcomed the consultation.
He said: “Facial recognition technology can protect people from serious harm by enabling more missing people to be found.
“However, we need to better understand the ethical implications and what precautions need to be taken to use this technology safely.”
