UK government seeks expanded use of AI-based facial recognition by police

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The Home Office is looking to increase its use of controversial facial recognition technologies to track and find criminals within policing and other security agencies.

In a document released on Wednesday, the government outlined its ambitions to potentially deploy new biometric systems nationally over the next 12 to 18 months.

The move comes after privacy campaigners and independent academics criticised the technology for being inaccurate and biased, particularly against darker-skinned people. MPs have previously called for a moratorium on its use on the general population until clear laws are established by parliament.

The government is calling for submissions from companies for technologies that “can resolve identity using facial features and landmarks”, including for live facial recognition which involves screening the general public for specific individuals on police watch lists.

In particular, the Home Office is highlighting its interest in novel artificial intelligence technologies that could process facial data efficiently to identify individuals, and software that could be integrated with existing technologies deployed by the department and with CCTV cameras.

Facial recognition software has been used by South Wales Police and London’s Metropolitan Police over the past five years across multiple trials in public spaces including shopping centres, during events such as the Notting Hill Carnival and, more recently, during the coronation.

The Financial Times has previously revealed that the private owners of King’s Cross in London were using facial recognition on the general public, scanning for known troublemakers and sharing the data with the Metropolitan Police. They have since stopped using the technology.

The European parliament, by contrast, is moving towards banning the use of facial recognition software that uses AI in public spaces via its Artificial Intelligence Act.

It is currently widely debated whether there is any legal basis to use live facial recognition on the general population, and whether blanket use of the technology fundamentally undermines the rights of citizens.

In the UK, police forces are not alone in adopting the technology — schools and private retailers, such as the Southern Co-op and J Sainsbury, have all begun to use it.

In 2020, appeal court judges ruled that previous trials by South Wales Police of facial recognition software were unlawful, although the force continues to use the technology. At the time of the ruling, South Wales Police said it would give the court findings “serious attention” and that its policies had evolved since the trials.

Last month, the Met Police announced it had conducted a review into the technology’s effectiveness and found “no statistically significant bias in relation to race and gender, and the chance of a false match is just one in 6,000 people who pass the camera”.

“There should be a proper legislative framework, and I don’t think it should be used until we have that certainty,” said Stephanie Hare, an independent researcher on facial recognition technologies and a technology ethicist. “What I don’t like is the China version of generalised use of live facial recognition. We have to put guardrails and regulations around it.”

The government’s Defence and Security Accelerator, a body that sits within the Ministry Of Defence, is running the submission exercise for the Home Office.

It said facial recognition was already being used in a number of ways within UK policing and security settings to “prevent and detect crime, enhance security, find wanted criminals” among others, and that using the technology more widely was “a priority” for the Home Office.

Last year, an independent legal review conducted by barrister and former deputy mayor of London Matthew Ryder found an “urgent need” for new legislation on live facial recognition after an analysis of existing laws across human rights, privacy and equality found them to be inadequate. The report concluded that a moratorium on live facial recognition — the live surveillance of people in public and private areas — should be enacted.

However, Paul Taylor, National Policing chief scientific adviser, said he “strongly supports” the development and implementation of facial recognition technology within law enforcement and is “encouraged by its potential”.

“By establishing robust governance frameworks, implementing strict data protection protocols, and ensuring transparency and accountability, we can strike the right balance between public safety and individual privacy rights,” he said.