London district calls on police to stop live facial recognition use

A London district known for its Victorian architecture and the home stadium of Arsenal Football Club has called for the police to stop deploying live facial recognition (LFR) on its grounds.

Last week, the Islington Borough Council rejected the Metropolitan Police’s use of live facial recognition, becoming the third council in London to do so after Haringey and Newham.

“Islington Council does not support the use of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology and are calling on the Mayor of London to ask that the Metropolitan Police, Transport for London and the other agencies he is responsible for refrain from using LFR technologies within the borough,” it said in a statement.

In its arguments, the Council says that facial recognition is intrusive, unreliable and has the potential to be used disproportionately against Black, Asian and ethnic communities. It also cites figures from a 2018 study on gender classification disparity showing an error rate of up to 35 percent for identifying black women. The technology has been used twice so far in Islington, both during 2023, the Council says.

The move was welcomed by privacy organization Big Brother Watch, which launched a legal action against the Met Police in May after its facial recognition misidentified a man.

“Both the Met Commissioner and the Home Secretary should take note that communities in areas where this technology has been used are rejecting live facial recognition,” says Mark Johnson, the organization’s advocacy manager.

Islington’s decision could potentially affect facial recognition deployments during large events, a practice that has become increasingly popular over the past years. In April, police deployed the biometric tech at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium during a north London derby between Arsenal and the Spurs. Islington district is home to Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium.

Biometric Update has reached out to the Met Police for more information.

UK police not backing down on LFR

Facial recognition is making a huge difference to policing on the streets of London, says Lindsey Chiswick, Director of Intelligence at the Metropolitan Police.

The Met police have made 257 arrests through live facial recognition, including for grievous bodily harm, knife crime and robbery. It also made over 300 stops of other people subject to various bail conditions, Chiswick said last week at the Future of Britain Conference 2024 hosted by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

A part of these figures comes from the London town of Croydon where police made 45 arrests during just two days in January.

“Analysis in Croydon shows that crime went down when it was used over a period of weeks,” says Chiswick. “From my experience going on deployment on the ground, I’ve had really positive feedback from businesses and local people in the area.”

She added that the country’s largest police force has been as transparent as possible about its facial recognition deployments while the algorithm was tested independently by the National Physical Laboratory.

“We know it’s accurate, and we also know how to operate it without any bias,” she says.

Despite criticism of Orwellian surveillance tactics from lawmakers and rights groups, London’s police force has recently received government investment of £230 million (US$295 million) in drones and facial recognition.

Live facial recognition is currently being used in London and South Wales. The county of Essex, neighboring London, is also preparing to deploy the technology on a regular basis after trialing it in public spaces in October last year.

The regular deployment will begin by the end of this year, Chief Constable Ben-Julian Harrington told the BBC. The surveillance will be conducted through cameras mounted on police vans. Harrington added that the system would be used to identify wanted individuals or those who could be about to commit “really serious” crimes.

In December 2023, a UK Parliament committee probed police deployment of live facial recognition in England and South Wales.

Article Topics

biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  criminal ID  |  facial recognition  |  London Metropolitan Police  |  police  |  real-time biometrics  |  UK