Home Office Not Monitoring How Police Use Live Facial Recognition
4 min read
The Home Office is not monitoring how police forces are using live facial recognition technology despite evidence that the equipment can lead to racial bias.
The admission comes as MPs urge the government to introduce strict laws clamping down on police officers’ use of LFR. The equipment has been deployed by police for almost a decade with no specific legislation governing its use, despite concerns that the equipment is racially biased and could damage civil liberties.
At least seven police forces across England and Wales currently use LFR, with another five soon to join them. The cameras scan faces on busy streets to check whether they match those on a ‘watchlist’ of people the police are looking for. The sensitivity settings used in each case play a critical role in determining how many people are identified by the cameras as possible matches, to then be confirmed as such by a human officer.
A Home Office source confirmed to PoliticsHome that the government does not keep any record of the settings used by each police force, saying that this information is already available on police force’s websites.
While most forces use an algorithm tested by the National Physical Laboratory - and do so at a setting of 0.64 - with the intention of eliminating racial and other biases, the police are not required by law to use it at this particular setting, and not all forces even use the same algorithm.
Both Suffolk and Essex Police use a different algorithm at a sensitivity setting of their choice - 0.55 - which they say follows testing by the University of Cambridge. That algorithm and setting have resulted in one false match in the case of Essex – which they say was due to the poor quality of an image on their watchlist - and none in the case of Suffolk, though the latter force has only used LFR twice.
Suffolk Police state that “where operationally possible”, they “will set the face-match threshold at or above this [0.55] level, unless such a case can be justified to lower below this level which will be a consideration for the AO [authorised officer]”.
They add: “An example may be immediately following a terrorist attack, deploying facial recognition in the area to locate the suspects, a case might be made to lower the face-match threshold below the recommended due to the ongoing threat posed to the public”.
The Home Office has promised to “launch a public consultation to develop a bespoke new legal framework” for LFR later this autumn, though it is unclear whether that will include new, dedicated legislation.
Labour MP Kim Johnson told The House magazine that the pledge to consult “doesn’t go nearly far enough”, as LFR “is already being used by police in public spaces without proper oversight”.
She added: “Any consultation must not be a cover for expanding surveillance powers. We need strict limits, independent oversight, and full transparency.”
Former Conservative culture secretary John Whittingdale warned that without more robust safeguards in place, he feared a future “more authoritarian government” could one day use LFR to track citizens’ movements.
“There is no way the current police use of LFR [in the UK]… would conform with what the EU decided after a proper, mature debate about what legislation there should be,” said Green MP Siân Berry. “What I want is actual laws to be passed, and for it not to be simply a consultation.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Live facial recognition is a crucial tool to keep the public safe by helping the police to locate offenders, with many serious criminals already brought to justice through its use.
“Police forces using this technology are required to comply with existing legislation governing its use, as well as their human rights and equality obligations. We will launch a public consultation to develop a bespoke new legal framework for law enforcement’s use of facial recognition technology.”
Lindsey Chiswick, facial recognition technology lead at the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said: “While we recognise there will always be a range of views when it comes to the use of any new technology, polling by a number of different organisations shows that the majority of the public support police use of facial recognition…
“We work closely with the national police chief scientific adviser and local ethics panels to ensure we are abiding by the highest ethical standards. Oversight is provided by police and crime commissioners and mayors, in addition to the Information Commissioner’s Office and other regulatory bodies.”
