Topics / Crime, policing and justice
Should police use live facial recognition in public spaces?
Whether police in the UK should use live facial recognition, which compares the faces of people passing cameras in public places against a watchlist in real time, and if so, under what legal basis, safeguards and limits.
Positions
- Yes: Live facial recognition helps police find people wanted for serious offences quickly and accurately, so they should be able to use it routinely in public spaces. For people who are not on a watchlist the intrusion is minimal, because their images are compared automatically and not retained.
- Yes, with strict limits: Police may use live facial recognition in public spaces, but only under a clear statutory basis, with independent oversight, independently tested and published accuracy standards, narrow watchlists limited to serious offences and vulnerable people, and transparency about when and where it is used.
- No: Police should not use live facial recognition in public spaces, because scanning everyone's face to find a few people makes identification by the state a condition of public life and changes the relationship between citizens and the state. Its errors and burdens are also likely to fall unevenly on groups who already experience disproportionate policing.