Police warned over use of face scanning technology

FACIAL recognition technology should only be deployed by police to hunt serious criminals, says the information commissioner, as she demanded a statutory code to protect people’s privacy.

Elizabeth Denham warned police that they should not use the cameras in a “blanket, opportunistic and indiscriminate” way to scan thousands of people in public places so they could catch “a few minor suspects or persons of interest”.

She also demanded that the images of up to 21million people who were arrested but never charged should be deleted from police databases and not used for “watchlists” of suspects against which faces are matched by computer algorithms.

The public should also be told when, where and why the cameras are being deployed by police, and any images taken of “innocent” people in public places should be immediately deleted.

Her proposed curbs are contained in the first legal opinion she has issued and are likely to provide a blueprint for the new statutory code for live facial recognition (LFR) technology that she wants the Government to introduce.

Ms Denham’s move follows her investigation into the use of the cameras by police amid growing concern at the spread of “potentially invasive” technology that threatens individuals’ rights to privacy.

South Wales Police, the Metropolitan Police and Leicestershire’s constabulary have held trials of the technology.

“The absence of a statutory code that speaks to the specific challenges posed by LFR will increase the likelihood of legal failures and undermine public confidence in its use,” she said.

Ms Denham warned that a High Court judgment backing South Wales Police’s use of facial recognition should not be seen as a blanket authorisation for police to use it in all circumstances.

Instead, she said its deployment should meet a “high statutory threshold” where there was a “demonstrable benefit to the public”. “An example is where it is used to locate a known terrorist suspect or violent criminal in a specific area,” she said.

She applied the same rule to “watchlists” which would most likely fall foul of the code if they had images solely of people who were “wanted or suspected of non-serious offences”.

She said she had serious concerns about watchlists compiled using images from custody lists. Police have been ordered to destroy an estimated 21million images but have pleaded cost and complexity for delaying doing so.