New UK facial recognition vans equipped with NEC software

Police in England and Wales are expanding their use of live facial recognition from NEC Software Solutions UK Ltd with ten new mobile units.

The ten previously announced mobile facial recognition vans are funded by the Home Office and the NPCC, and acquired through BlueLight Commercial, the non-profit commercial consortium for police and emergency services. NEC says the contracts for its NeoFace Watch software come from “a further competition exercise” following the establishment of BlueLight Commercial’s National Live Facial Recognition Framework.

The Framework was launched in April, with NEC, Digital Barriers and Bedroq named as suppliers for a £20 million ($25.2 million) contract.

The units will be operated by 7 UK police forces, but made available through them to all other forces on the basis of mutual aid, according to the announcement.

“Our technology has been tested and operationally proven, globally, to provide highly accurate and unbiased results and been in use by a number of UK Police forces for the past decade and we look forward to being able to support this new national capability,” says NEC Executive Director of Public Safety Steve Ainsworth.

NEC notes that its biometric software has been tested by the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL), and that it works well despite age changes in subjects, camera angles, headwear and adverse lighting conditions. Recent reports indicate that the system cost Wales police £3.5 million (US$4.7 million) over the last seven years, with false alerts falling over that time.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  Home Office Biometrics (HOB)  |  NEC  |  NEC Software Solutions UK  |  NeoFace  |  police  |  procurement  |  real-time biometrics