More missing children than transparency in UK police live facial recognition watchlists

Police in the UK have included hundreds of minors on its facial recognition surveillance watchlist, including children under the age of 12. The discovery is sparking concern among civil rights organizations and lawmakers, including England’s Children’s Commissioner Rachel de Souza.

Individuals under the age of 18 have been featured at least 1,600 times on live facial recognition (LFR) systems used by six police forces across the country, according to a new investigation published this week by rights group Liberty and The Times.

The figure could be much higher as some forces, including the London Metropolitan Police, were unable to provide the full numbers. As the UK’s largest police force, the Met Police has conducted hundreds of LFR deployments since 2022.

A total of four police forces have confirmed they include minors in facial recognition watchlists and provided relevant data.

Commissioner de Souza said she is “deeply concerned” that police forces are including minors in LFR watchlists.

“It raises serious questions about why this is needed and how it is being used,” she says. “The police’s duty to protect the public must not come at the expense of the protection of vulnerable children who need care and support.”

Both Conservative and Labour Party Members of the UK Parliament (MPs) argue that limits on the technology should be introduced in light of the revelation, while campaigners have called for greater protection of children’s privacy.

“It is appalling to find police using this invasive technology on children, who are particularly vulnerable to the privacy and safeguarding risks that live facial recognition carries,” Green Party MP Siân Berry told The Times.

UK police push back

The investigation comes amid plans to expand the use of LFR and set a legal foundation for its use across 43 regional police forces and the British Transport Police.

Police deployments of LRF are currently conducted by mounting a camera on top of a van, which scans crowds at public areas, matching faces to individuals on police watchlists of suspects and missing persons. If there is no match, the facial image is automatically deleted.

The UK government wants the technology to become a permanent fixture: Instead of just mounting cameras on vans, fixed cameras would be placed to monitor crowds, including at train stations.

People can be included on a facial recognition watchlist for various reasons, including being wanted by the police or by courts, being reported missing or being a victim of a crime, according to the College of Policing, a professional body for UK police.

“The reality is that there are some serious crimes committed by offenders under the age of 18 … We will also be using the technology to help find high-risk missing people, of which a significant proportion reported to us are under 18,” says a spokesperson for Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary.

According to data from 2023-2024, 65 percent of all missing persons were minors, former prison governor Ian Acheson explains in an opinion piece in The Spectator.

“Many of these children abscond from care homes and are at acute risk from sexual and criminal exploitation,” says Acheson, who is currently the director of Community Safety at the UK Home Office.

Young people are also sometimes offenders and can inflict extreme harm, he adds. Among 53,000 offenses involving knives, 18 percent involved juveniles, according to data from 2024 ending in March. Young people are also engaged in antisocial behavior as well as theft, intimidation and vandalism, he argues.

“In this sense, the systems should make no discrimination in terms of age,” says Acheson.

The police, however, must do more to regulate deployments of facial recognition, including its use on minors, he adds.

LFR needs clear regulation

Police are currently required to “specifically identify and document” the inclusion of minors’ images on LFR watchlists, according to the College of Policing. Different police forces, however, interpret this requirement in different ways and there is no unified approach to documenting children on watchlists.

Some police forces include specific numbers of minors on watchlists and others don’t, while none provide reasons for the minors’ inclusion.

“Police must ensure deployments comply with the law, protect children’s privacy, and have a clear rationale for including any individual on a watchlist,” says the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). “At the same time, data protection should not become a barrier to safeguarding children, careful consideration is needed to balance both.”

Community Safety Director Acheson notes that traditional policing methods are unable to cope with the volume of crimes. But while the expansion of LFR surveillance systems is necessary, the safeguards for their use are insufficient.

“New bespoke legislation is probably required with national standards and parliamentary scrutiny built in to ensure LFR is strictly confined to combatting criminality on intelligence and facts, not forecasts,” he says.

Earlier this week, the Home Office announced a proposal for a “legal framework for using facial recognition in law enforcement.” The framework includes both live and retrospective facial recognition as well as operator-initiated facial recognition (OIFR).

The proposal also includes the creation of a new oversight and regulatory body for “police use of biometrics, facial recognition and similar technologies.” The consultation will last 10 weeks.

Article Topics

biometric identification  |  biometric matching  |  biometrics  |  children  |  facial recognition  |  live facial recognition  |  London Metropolitan Police  |  police  |  regulation  |  UK