Faces of 400,000 Scots are stored on police database
A RECORD number of Scots have images of their face logged on a police database.
Almost 400,000 people north of the Border – one in 12 adults – now feature on a national facial recognition archive.
The headshots stored on the Police National Database (PND), taken when an individual is charged with an offence, can be compared with crime scene footage to identify suspects.
Although Police Scotland insist the technology is a powerful weapon in the fight against crime, there are concerns over the lack of independent oversight of the way biometrics are used.
Figures uncovered by The Scottish Mail on Sunday show 633,747 images of 362,348 people are stored on the PND – an increase of 8 per cent since 2015.
The database is also being used in a growing number of investigations north of the Border.
Between January and August officers carried out more than 650 searches – approximately three per day – for reasons including countering terrorism, national security and serious crime and child abuse investigations.
Detective Chief Inspector Ramsey Wilson, who leads Police Scotland’s National Intelligence Bureau, said facial recognition is fast becoming ‘one of the most useful tools in crime detection’.
He said: ‘It is a very good system that is helping to detect crimes that might otherwise remain undetected. We have seen cases where all other enquiries, including witness appeals, have been exhausted and then a probe image from CCTV or social media has been put into the PND system and a suspect has been identified.
‘There is such a quick turnaround which is important when there is a risk to the public – such as a terror threat.
‘Before, facial searches were very time-consuming – we had to visit all forces in the UK and go through manual records – but now we can search for a face in minutes and pass that information to the investigating officer.
‘It is important to remember that this is not mass surveillance. The only images stored on the PND are of people who have been charged with an offence. Images are weeded out if someone is not convicted.’
In recent months the system traced a sneak-in thief in Aberdeen after the database found a potential facial match with a known travelling criminal operating in Edinburgh and Essex and a counterfeiter from Bolton who tried to cash a fraudulent cheque at a bank in Dundee using a fake driving licence.
The Police National Database, set up in 2014, holds 20 million images from across the UK.
Algorithms match unique biometric points on each face (such as the distance between the eyes and length of the nose), meaning the technology can identify an individual even if they have aged, gained or lost weight or grown a beard.
Police Scotland has so far stopped short of coupling facial recognition technology with mass surveillance – which has controversially been trialled in England and Wales.
The Metropolitan Police was criticised last week for using facial recognition software to scan the faces of tens of thousands of revellers at the Notting Hill carnival in London.
The Force said it was a pilot intended to look for potential troublemakers and people wanted by the police to keep those attending safe but privacy groups claimed it was ‘unlawful’ intrusion.
England and Wales Biometrics Commissioner Paul Wiles said: ‘The public benefit of the use of such an intrusive technology must outweigh the interference in individual privacy.’
Following a review by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland last year into the use of PND facial searches by Police Scotland, an independent advisory group has been set up, chaired by John Scott, QC.
The group will consider human rights and ethical considerations of
‘This is not mass surveillance’ ‘Cannot have a casual attitude to our privacy’
how biometric data is captured, used, stored and disposed of north of the Border and whether Scotland should have its own Biometrics Commissioner.
Scottish Lib Dem justice spokesman Liam McArthur said: ‘With the massive expansion in the use of cameras to monitor our streets we need more than a vague commitment from the authorities about our privacy.
‘The SNP Government cannot have a casual attitude to our privacy and must act swiftly to make the long overdue changes.’