{"id":360513,"date":"2025-08-20T22:33:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T22:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/360513\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T22:33:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T22:33:14","slug":"doubts-cast-over-success-of-met-polices-live-facial-recognition-technology-southwark-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/360513\/","title":{"rendered":"Doubts cast over success of Met Police\u2019s Live Facial Recognition technology \u2013 Southwark News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Metropolitan Police must reevaluate the supposed success of live facial recognition (LFR) technology before it is used increasingly in London and rolled out across England, the force has been told.<\/strong><\/p>\n

London Assembly members have raised concerns about the Met\u2019s decision to more than double the frequency of use of the technology in the capital, as well as the Home Office announcing seven more police forces will now be able to utilise it.<\/p>\n

In the last 12 months, 580 arrests for offences including rape, domestic abuse and knife crime were arrested using LFR technology, the Met said.<\/p>\n

The force claimed that without its use, \u201cthese offenders may otherwise have remained unlawfully at large, posing a continued threat to the public and taking up much more officer time to locate them.\u201d<\/p>\n

They added: \u201cLFR is helping to apprehend wanted criminals in London and catch those who are breaking bail conditions without the need for extensive police resources or frequent visits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics have branded the use of LFR, which maps a person\u2019s unique facial features, and matches them against faces on watchlists, as an \u201cerosion of civil liberties\u201d, and have questioned how the Met measured its success given the resources poured into the technology and the fact that hundreds of thousands of faces have been scanned.<\/p>\n

Zoe Garbett, a Green Party London Assembly Member, told the Local Democracy Service:\u00a0 \u201cWe are told that the Met\u2019s LFR rollout has been a success due to the number of arrests made using the technology \u2013 but the figure is not given in context compared with the effort and resources invested.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Met has not done a business cost on LFR technology, and so we have no means of measuring success.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople would not want their fingerprints taken every time they go into town \u2013 but we have slowly allowed this erosion of civil liberties to happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere needs to be a proper pause and review on the use of LFR technology to see whether its the best use of resources for policing \u2013 we should not just take the number of arrests out of context to measure this.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn a whole, the Met need to think whether this is the relationship they want with Londoners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis technology undermines our fundamental democratic principles by treating us all as suspects, often without our knowledge or consent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it\u2019s disappointing to see this technology rolled out across the country, I\u2019ll continue holding the Met to account to ensure its use is properly scrutinised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gareth Roberts, the Liberal Democrat Police and Crime Lead on the London Assembly, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: \u201cThe Met should not be racing ahead to even further expand the use of live facial recognition technology before a proper national legal framework is in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsing this intrusive technology without strong safeguards risks eroding civil liberties, disproportionately targeting minoritised communities and undermining public trust in the Met.\u201d<\/p>\n

In March, it emerged that over half of the 180 facial recognition deployments in London last year took place in areas with a higher proportion of Black residents than the city\u2019s average.<\/p>\n

This included Croydon, where over a fifth of people identify as Black or Black British. In 2024, 128,518 faces were scanned for just 133 arrests.<\/p>\n

Campaign group Big Brother Watch said LFR technology is \u201cauthoritarian\u201d and can have \u201clife-changing consequences\u201d if used mistakenly.<\/p>\n

The privacy watchdog is currently assisting Shaun Thompson, who was wrongly identified as a suspect by LFR technology last year, in bringing a High Court challenge against the Met Police.<\/p>\n

Madeleine Stone, Senior Advocacy Officer at the organisation, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: \u201cThe Met police are currently facing a legal challenge over their use of live facial recognition surveillance after an anti-knife crime community worker was wrongly flagged by the technology as a criminal. The Home Office\u2019s decision to invest millions of pound in this Orwellian surveillance technology while a crucial judicial review on the matter is pending is deeply misguided.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolicing resources are threadbare in London, and with many serious crimes not even being investigated, spending millions of pounds on rights-abusing technology is an insult to Londoners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe expansion of facial recognition technology comes at a serious cost to the taxpayer, to our civil liberties, and to stretched policing resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lindsey Chiswick, NPCC lead for facial recognition, said: \u201cThe police have a duty to prevent crime and keep the public safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cLive Facial recognition supports effective policing, enabling officers to locate suspects quickly and accurately.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe increased access to Live Facial Recognition vehicles to forces that previously did not have the capability is an excellent opportunity for policing.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach Live Facial Recognition deployment will be targeted, intelligence led, within a set geographical location and for defined period of time, ensuring deployments are proportionate, lawful and necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cLive Facial Recognition has already been used in policing to great success, locating thousands of wanted offenders, or others breaching their bail conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am confident that the increased use of this technology will continue to support the safety of communities across the country moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Metropolitan Police must reevaluate the supposed success of live facial recognition (LFR) technology before it is used…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,257,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-360513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-london","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115063475622469554","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}