Government watchdog attacks Met Police over roll out of facial recognition cameras
4 min read
The Metropolitan Police has been criticised after announcing it will start using facial recognition cameras to target serious offenders in London.
In a move to combat violent crime, the force plans to use controversial new technology to carry out live checks in popular locations.
The cameras will target suspects involved in serious violence, gun and knife crime and child sexual exploitation, and are likely to be placed in railway stations, clubs and shopping centres.
The technology, which police say can identify 70 per cent of suspects, will perform constant checks against a list of "wanted people", and those identified will be asked by officers to identify themselves.
Signs will alert the public to the cameras' use, and police will hand out leaflets explaining the technology, which will operate for between five to six hours at a time.
Plans to use facial recognition cameras in the capital were given the go-ahead after a High Court in Cardiff said a trial of the technology by South Wales Police was lawful.
But the Government’s Biometrics Commissioner, who oversees the police’s use of new technology, has joined human rights groups and MPs in criticising the plans, and argued that the Welsh court’s judgement did not give police a blank cheque to introduce the cameras.
Professor Paul Wiles said: “It should be noted that the published legal mandate references the recent judgment of the High Court in Cardiff on the use of LFR [Live Facial Recognition] by South Wales Police.
“Although the court found South Wales’ use of LFR to be consistent with the requirements of the Human Rights Act and data protection legislation that judgement was specific to the particular circumstances in which South Wales Police used their LFR system.
“The Metropolitan Police will need to pay attention to those circumstances to which the court drew attention.
“It should also be noted that the South Wales decision is now being appealed and that the new government gave a manifesto commitment to provide a strict legal framework to govern the future police use of biometrics and artificial intelligence.”
Big Brother Watch, who campaign against privacy infringements, have said they will mount a legal challenge against the decision next month, and called the announcement “a breath-taking assault on our rights”.
In September last year, a cross-party group of MPs joined the watchdog in demanding police halt facial recognition trials.
Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, then Lib Dem Leader Jo Swinson, Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas and Conservative MP David Davis signed the statement, which called on police to “immediately stop using live facial recognition for public surveillance.”
David Davis, former Brexit Secretary, said the move to roll out the new technology was “unwise”.
ACCURACY
Trials of facial recognition cameras have already taken place in 10 locations, with the Met claiming only one in 1,000 people are misidentified as a suspect.
An independent review by researchers from the Human Rights, Big Data & Technology Project, however, evaluated six of the trials and concluded that only 19 per cent were "verifiably correct".
In September 2019, an interim report from the Home Office-appointed Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group said facial recognition technology could also be biased.
The group said: "The system can only 'recognise' faces within the parameters of the data that it has been trained on and previously exposed to.
"There have been high-profile scientific concerns that there is intrinsic potential racial and gender bias within LFR systems."
Announcing the plans yesterday, Met Assistant Commissioner Nick Ephgrave said: “Bearing down on serious violence is our number one priority and we believe we should explore the value of new technology to help us do that.
“Locating people who are wanted by the police is not new. Every day police officers are briefed with images of suspects to look out for, resulting in positive identifications and arrests every day.
“Live facial recognition is about modernizing this practice through technology to improve effectiveness and bring more offenders to justice."
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