Police use cameras to scan faces of shoppers

SCOTLAND Yard is to train facial recognition cameras on Christmas shoppers for the first time.

The surveillance devices in Soho, Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square will scan for ‘people wanted by police and the courts’. The equipment will be on show and uniformed officers will hand out leaflets explaining what is going on.

They are likely to be accompanied by plainclothes ‘spotters’ watching for those who act suspiciously when they see the equipment. The cameras will capture images that will be cross-referenced against a database of wanted people.

Ivan Balhatchet, of the Metropolitan Police, said it was one of ten camera trials in London. But Silkie Carlo, of the campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: ‘The police’s use of this authoritarian surveillance tool in total absence of a legal or democratic basis is alarming.’