London Mayor Sadiq Khan outlined his plans to pedestrianise Oxford Street. The use of facial recognition technology, while not confirmed, has not been ruled out.
Big Brother Watch’s Jasleen Chaggar said: “If the newly walkable Oxford Street becomes another zone for intrusive facial recognition surveillance, it shows that nowhere in London is safe from becoming a permanent digital police line-up.
“Londoners who are not suspected of any wrongdoing should be able to walk freely in public spaces without having to submit to identity checks that process personal information as sensitive as their DNA or fingerprint.
“The Mayor says he wants to turn Oxford Street into a world-leading urban space, so why he won’t rule out Orwellian tech that is more at home in authoritarian regimes than in a democratic city?”