Facial recognition technology ‘in secret use’ at public places

FACIAL recognition technology is being used in shopping centres, museums and conference venues around the UK.

An investigation by Big Brother Watch, a campaign group, has found live facial-recognition technology, where images of people are transmitted from a camera feed and matched to a database, is secretly in use.

It issued an alert after an investigation by the Information Commissioners Office into the use of the technology around King’s Cross station in London, where “many millions of innocent people will have had their faces scanned with this surveillance without knowing about it”.

The group also found “secret police trials” had been conducted in Meadowhall shopping centre, Sheffield, yielding up to 2million visitors’ faces, it said.

The technology was also used at Millennium Point conference centre, Birmingham, where, according to its privacy policy, it was used “at the request of law enforcement authorities”. It added there were signs indicating that CCTV was in operation at the site.

The World Museum in Liverpool was also named in a report by the watchdog that said people’s faces were scanned for the Terracotta Warriors exhibition last year. The museum’s operator, National Museums Liverpool, said this was because of a “heightened security risk” and after “advice from Merseyside Police and counter terrorism advisers”. Its use was “communicated in signage around the venue”, it said.

British Land, the owner of Meadowhall, said it was no longer operating facial recognition at any of its sites and that the trial was conducted over just one month. “All data was deleted immediately after the trial,” it said, adding

‘This is the perfect tool of oppression and its use indicates we’re facing a privacy emergency’

that while there had been no signs to suggest facial recognition technology was in use, the system only picked up the faces of shopworkers who had agreed to take part in the trial.

Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, said the collaboration of “police and private companies in building surveillance nets around popular spaces is deeply disturbing”. She added: “Facial recognition is the perfect tool of oppression and the widespread use we’ve found indicates we’re facing a privacy emergency. Parliament must follow in the footsteps of legislators in the US and ban this.”

The findings come after it emerged facial recognition systems had been deployed in the area around King’s Cross.

Argent said it used the tool as one of “a number of detection and tracking methods”. A King’s Cross spokesman claimed there were “sophisticated systems in place to protect the privacy of the general public”.

Such schemes are facing increasing scrutiny amid concerns that companies are conducting secret identity checks on visitors. Existing data protection laws require companies to provide clear evidence of the need to record and use people’s images.

Police have also carried out trials into how facial recognition could be used, including the Metropolitan Police in London and South Wales police.

The Home Office has been in touch with West Midlands, Kent and British Transport Police over using the technology to “help find missing people”.

The Government has issued advice that trials should be halted until a legislative framework can be agreed.