Regulator raises issues over Met’s facial recognition digital camera use

The UK’s equality regulator has criticised the Metropolitan Police’s use of dwell facial recognition expertise (LFRT), saying the best way it’s being deployed is breaching human rights legislation.

The tech works by scanning the faces of individuals recorded on CCTV after which evaluating them in opposition to a watchlist of people that the police are searching for.

The Met says it has made greater than 1,000 arrests since January 2024 utilizing LFRT and is assured it makes use of it in a lawful method.

However the Equality and Human Rights Fee (EHRC) says the tech ought to solely be utilized in a vital and proportionate method, and is arguing “the Metropolitan Police’s present coverage falls wanting this commonplace.”

The EHRC has been granted permission to intervene in an upcoming judicial evaluate into the pressure’s use of the surveillance instrument.

John Kirkpatrick, chief govt of the EHRC, acknowledged the tech might be used assist to fight critical crime and hold individuals secure.

However he added in an announcement: “There should be clear guidelines which assure that dwell facial recognition expertise is used solely the place vital, proportionate and constrained by applicable safeguards. We consider that the Metropolitan Police’s present coverage falls wanting this commonplace.”

A Met Police spokesperson informed the BBC: “A judicial evaluate listening to is scheduled for January 2026 and we’re absolutely engaged on this course of. We’re assured that our use of dwell facial recognition is lawful and follows the coverage.”

The EHRC stated it recognised the potential advantages of the expertise in policing however was involved that the Met’s present coverage breached key human rights protections and posed a risk to human rights.

These embody the rights to privateness, freedom of expression, and freedom of meeting, as set out within the European Conference on Human Rights.

Final month, the Met stated the tech had allow it to arrest suspected offenders together with alleged paedophiles, rapists and violent robbers, 773 of whom had been charged or a cautioned.

The Met has introduced plans to make use of the expertise to police main occasions corresponding to Notting Hill Carnival – a proposal which has proved divisive.

Civil rights teams and privateness campaigners have persistently opposed LFRT, saying it invades individuals’s privateness, and carries an unacceptable threat of misidentification.

The Met has defended its use, nonetheless, saying it helps lower crime at a time when “cash is tight.”

At the moment, there isn’t a particular home laws regulating police use of dwell facial recognition tech.