Scotland weighs LFR policies as police request mask ban, ethics study launches

If police in Scotland are able to use live facial recognition in public then people should not be allowed to cover their faces with masks, the Scottish Police Federation says. The policy request comes just as a new project launches to consider how Scottish police’s use of real-time face biometrics should be governed.

“There is little point investing millions of pounds in sophisticated technology capable of recognizing a face if an individual intent on committing crime can simply hide that face behind a mask or covering,” according to Federation General Secretary David Kennedy says, as reported by Scottish Legal News.

England’s recently-passed Crime and Policing Act 2026 allows police to establish 24-hour “mask-free zones,” which Kennedy would like to see copied in Scotland. Allowances would have to be made for religious, cultural, medical and occupational reasons, he says.

A deliberative approach to setting up LFR governance

While LFR has been deployed in England and Wales for years now, Scotland is taking a deliberative approach to deciding how it wants to the technology to be governed. To that end, the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR) is backing an academic study into the administration of live facial recognition in law enforcement.

The “Face[REC]” project combines legal analysis with workshops to draw insights from police officer and citizen participants. The research will focus on the ethical implications of LFR and appropriate regulations. Outcomes will include a physical deck of cards “to enable collective deliberation between policymakers, academics, police, and regulators about governing LFR now and in the future.”

Police Scotland stated its commitment to adopting real-time facial recognition last year, touching off a series of reactions and responses ranging from pleas to ban the tech to assurances about governance requirements. Scotland still could be the first country in the world to pass primary legislation directly addressing the use of LFR by police.

In recent months, the UK BSCC has expressed support for a greater oversight role for his Biometrics Commissioner colleague in Holyrood, and the country’s chief inspector of constabulary urged faster adoption advanced technologies, including LFR.

A pair of biometrics experts who are directors at the Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy (CRISP), Dr. Diana Miranda of the University of Stirling and Dr. Lachlan Urquhart of the University of Edinburgh, will lead the research.

The project is getting £20,000 (roughly US$27,000) in funding from SIPR, and support from the two universities. Miranda is a senior lecturer in criminology, and Urquhart a senior lecturer in technology law and human-computer interaction.

The project is expected to be completed in the Spring of 2027.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  law enforcement  |  live facial recognition  |  Police Scotland  |  Scotland