UPDATE: We’ve launched groundbreaking legal action to stop the expansion of live facial recognition surveillance in the UK. Join the fight-back here. Donate to our NEW CROWDFUNDER today.
Police and private companies in the UK are increasingly using facial recognition technology to monitor, categorise and track us. The technology works by creating a 'faceprint' of everyone who passes in front of camera — processing biometric data as sensitive as a fingerprint, often without our knowledge or consent. This dangerously authoritarian surveillance is a threat to our privacy and freedoms — it has no place on the streets of Britain.
We've just launched legal action against police and shops' use of live facial recognition surveillance
We’re crowdfunding to grow the biggest possible campaign of resistance to an unprecedented Government and retail expansion of facial recognition surveillance in the UK. With your support, we can:
Take groundbreaking legal action against police and shops' use of facial recognition
Demand politicians roll back live facial recognition
Give legal advice & support to people affected by live facial recognition
Work with groups around the world fighting live facial recognition surveillance
Every penny you donate will go directly towards our work fighting the spread of this Orwellian surveillance technology and protecting your privacy.
PETITION
We’re sending a message to the Home Secretary and Met police chief Mark Rowley that facial recognition has no place in British policing.
We’re urging them to immediately stop using authoritarian live facial recognition, and if enough of us join the call, we can make them rethink. Sign (and share!) here:
SIGN HERE
Biometric Britain
The boom in facial recognition technology in the UK, operating in a largely lawless space, is a mortal threat to privacy as we know it.
To power the fight back, we’ve compiled detailed research and analysis on the spread of this technology – and what needs to be done to combat it. Read more here:
The facts
Tens of millions of people in the UK
SCANNED
Police, shopping centres, concerts, museums, stadiums, bars found to have used the surveillance
There is no law for facial recognition in the UK
3,000+ people wrongly identified by police facial recognition
Facial recognition banned in San Francisco + 13 other cities
Research shows that facial recognition discriminates against women and people of colour.
TAKE ACTION
1
DONATE!
We’re crowdfunding to grow the biggest possible campaign of resistance to an unprecedented Government and retail expansion of facial recognition surveillance in the UK.
2
SIGN THE PETITION
Tell the Met Commissioner and Minister for Policing to stop using facial recognition surveillance now. If enough of us sign, they’ll be under pressure to reconsider the decision. Please share the petition with as many people as you can.
3
SUBSCRIBE
Don't miss out on live facial recognition alerts! Subscribe to our newsletter to stay informed on campaign actions.
Got a tip? If you have any information about facial recognition surveillance in the UK that might help our investigation, please let us know. Email us at info@bigbrotherwatch.org.uk or text us on Signal at +44 7514913266
Our campaign
We’re leading a national campaign against facial recognition. In 2023, we brought together 65 parliamentarians from across the political spectrum and 32 of the country’s leading rights and race equality groups to stand together against this surveillance expansion and call for an immediate stop to live facial recognition surveillance of public spaces by police and private companies in the UK.
This cross-party action is backed by former Brexit Secretary David Davis MP, Leader of the Liberal Democrats Sir Ed Davey, former Green MP Caroline Lucas and former Shadow Attorney General Shami Chakrabarti among others.
| Name | Party |
|---|---|
| David Davis MP | Conservative |
| Christine Jardine MP | Liberal Democrat |
| Ed Davey MP | Liberal Democrat |
| Wera Hobhouse MP | Liberal Democrat |
| Layla Moran MP | Liberal Democrat |
| Tim Farron MP | Liberal Democrat |
| Mick Whitley MP | Labour (Former) |
| Jamie Stone MP | Liberal Democrat |
| John McDonnell MP | Labour |
| Caroline Lucas MP | Green (Former) |
| Tommy Sheppard MP | Scottish National Party (Former) |
| Zarah Sultana MP | Labour |
| Valerie Vaz MP | Labour |
| Alistair Carmichael MP | Liberal Democrat |
| Chris Green MP | Conservative (Former) |
| Daisy Cooper MP | Liberal Democrat |
| Wendy Chamberlain MP | Liberal Democrat |
| Sarah Green MP | Liberal Democrat |
| Sarah Olney MP | Liberal Democrat |
| Munira Wilson MP | Liberal Democrat |
| Ian Byrne MP | Labour |
| Dawn Butler MP | Labour |
| Clive Lewis MP | Labour |
| Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP | Labour |
| Nadia Whittome MP | Labour |
| Rachael Maskell MP | Labour |
| Apsana Begum MP | Labour |
| Beth Winter MP | Labour (Former) |
| Ian Lavery MP | Labour |
| Richard Foord MP | Liberal Democrat |
| Richard Burgon MP | Labour |
| Rebecca Long Bailey MP | Labour |
| Andy McDonald MP | Labour |
| Joanna Cherry MP | Scottish National Party |
| Charles Walker MP | Conservative (Former) |
| Marcus Fysh MP | Conservative (Former) |
| Kim Johnson MP | Labour |
| Baroness Bennett | Green |
| Lord Strasburger | Liberal Democrats |
| Lord Clement-Jones | Liberal Democrats |
| Baroness Jenny Jones | Green |
| Baroness Shami Chakrabarti | Labour |
| Lord Strathcarron | Conservative |
| Lord Freyberg | Crossbench |
| Lord Vaux | Crossbench |
| Lord Hendy | Labour |
| Lord Sikka | Labour |
| Baroness Ludford | Liberal Democrats |
| Lord German | Liberal Democrats |
| Lord Beith | Liberal Democrats |
| Lord Marks KC | Liberal Democrats |
| Baroness Hussein-Ece | Liberal Democrats |
| Lord Dholakia | Liberal Democrats |
| Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville | Liberal Democrats |
| Baroness Hamwee | Liberal Democrats |
| Baroness Harris of Richmond | Liberal Democrats |
| Lord Oates | Liberal Democrats |
| Lord Storey | Liberal Democrats |
| Baroness Blower | Labour |
| Baron Davies of Brixton | Labour |
| Baron Woodley | Labour |
| Lord Skidelsky | Crossbench |
| Baroness Fox of Buckley | |
| Lord Alton of Liverpool | Crossbench |
OUR MISSION IS SIMPLE:
We’re fighting to urgently stop facial recognition surveillance from being used in our public spaces, whether by police or private companies. And we’re fighting to win.
HERE'S HOW WE'RE DOING IT:
INVESTIGATION
Our investigation into facial recognition in the UK is ongoing and we put information into the public domain as soon as we can. We work with media partners, including the BBC, to widely publish our findings. We have also passed on all of our findings to the data regulator, the ICO, and pressed them to investigate.
PROTESTS
When we are tipped off about future facial recognition deployments we attend to demonstrate, hand out leaflets, and observe any police/security action. It’s important we observe the police, so we can record and intervene in incidents like this. Want to join in? Sign up to our email updates
PARLIAMENT
We’re taking the campaign to the heart of power. We’ve launched two groundbreaking reports in Parliament, hosting high-profile MPs and Peers. We’ve since supported MPs tabling questions in parliament, we’ve circulated briefings for debates, and we’ve exposed the dangers of facial recognition in evidence for parliamentary committees and government working groups. (Find it all here.) We’ll continue pushing MPs and Peers to speak out against the use of facial recognition wherever we can.
BUILDING A MOVEMENT
We’re leading a national campaign against facial recognition, bringing together the country’s rights and race equality groups and politicians from across the political spectrum to stand together against this surveillance expansion. In September 2023, we issued a call for an urgent stop to facial recognition surveillance by police and private companies supported by over 180 tech experts and organisations.
REPORTS
We’re leading the fight back against the use of facial recognition surveillance in the UK – and our campaign is built on extensive expertise and analysis. We’ve published two groundbreaking reports, in 2018 and 2023, that lay out where, when and how facial recognition is being used and what needs to change.
IN THE MEDIA
What is facial recognition surveillance?
FACEPRINTS
This works by rapidly creating a biometric “faceprint” of your face – sensitive data that uniquely identifies you – much like a fingerprint, and comparing this for similar matches on a database.
Reference databases have been built from various sources including:
- CCTV images of “suspects” or “problem” individuals
- Subsets of the police’s enormous database of 19 million custody images, which includes vast numbers of photos of innocent people
- police intelligence databases, including innocent people with suspected mental health problems and political campaigners
But the possibilities are endless...
YOUR ONLINE LIFE UNLOCKED
Some facial recognition companies even check faces against internet data in real-time, trawling the entire internet to identify any photos of you, posted anywhere.
UK Facial recognition in detail
Seven police forces in England and Wales are currently using live facial recognition on a regular basis, while others have deployed it for large events or on a trial basis.
Metropolitan Police
We have investigated the Metropolitan Police’s use of live facial recognition since ‘trials’ began in 2016. The force announced plans to roll out facial recognition across the capital in January 2020, vowing to begin using it operationally within weeks. These plans were delayed by the Covid pandemic, but in early 2022, the force started to deploy the technology again. Force webpage
The Big Brother Watch team has attended dozens of London deployments and witnessed multiple misidentifications and concerning uses of the technology, including the targeting of Notting Hill Carnival two years in a row, and preventing people with suspected mental health issues, who were not wanted for arrest, from attending a Remembrance Sunday event.
It was in London in early 2024 that Shaun Thompson, a Black community volunteer, was misidentified by live facial recognition technology. Shaun is now bringing a legal challenge against the Metropolitan Police.
You can read the damning Independent Review of the Met’s facial recognition use and related media coverage.
South Wales Police
South Wales Police is the UK's national lead on facial recognition, supported by millions of pounds in Home Office funding. Its use was subject to a legal challenge by Cardiff resident, Dr. Ed Bridges, and in 2020, the Court of Appeal found the technology had not been used in accordance with the law.
The force is deploying the technology across Cardiff and south Wales, as well as loaning the technology to other police forces in the UK. The force has used the technology at festivals, concerts and sporting events. This resulted in fan protests ahead of matches and during. As part of 'Operation Advert', the force deployed the technology 15 times across Christmas markets in December 2023, and made just three arrests. Force webpage
North Wales Police
The force have deployed live facial recognition on three occasions in 2024, including at a football match, scanning over 40,000 people and making no arrests. The cost of these deployments was £18,625.11 (obtained via Freedom of Information request). Force webpage
Essex Police
The force has used the technology regularly since late 2023, largely in Southend. The deployments will have used hundreds of officer hours, yet less than 30 arrests have been made as of October 2024. Force webpage
Northamptonshire Police
Northamptonshire Police first trialled LFR in July 2023, as part of the policing of the F1 Grand Prix at Silverstone Park. Prior to the deployment, the force said it would be used to combat "unlawful protest".
Our Freedom of Information request request found that of the 790 people on the watchlist, just 234 people were “wanted for arrest, either on a warrant and/or suspicion of criminal activity”, making it likely that many people on the watchlist were innocent protesters. There were no positive alerts and no arrests made, despite over 400,000 people being scanned. The force deployed the technology again at the 2024 Grand Prix and again, made no arrests. Force webpage
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary
The force has deployed live facial recognition technology four times in 2024, scanning over 320,000 people and making just seven arrests. Force webpage
Bedfordshire Police
The force has deployed live facial recognition technology twice at the River Festival in 2024, scanning over 400,000 people. Force webpage
Suffolk Constabulary
The force deployed live facial recognition for the first time in February 2025, in Ipswich town centre. They borrowed vans from Essex police to trial the technology, scanning over 47,000 people in 6 hours. Force webpage
Other police forces
Humberside Police collaborated with Metropolitan Police to deploy live facial recognition at Hull docks in June 2018. No one was identified (except police officers aka ‘blue list’ for experimental purposes). Link PDF
Leicestershire Police was the first force in the UK to use live facial recognition software. This was at Download Festival in June 2015, where 90,000 festival-goers were checked against a Europol database.
South Yorkshire Police “supported” a facial recognition trial at Meadowhall, one of the biggest shopping centres in the North of England, in 2018. This was uncovered after a Big Brother Watch investigation. One trial lasted 2 days, the other 1 month. On our calculation, 2 million visitors could have been scanned. Read more on BBC, other press and see our FOIs.
Greater Manchester Police secretly conducted a six-month trial at the Trafford Centre March-September 2018 was criticised by the Surveillance Camera Commissioner for being disproportionate. We estimate 15 million visitors could have been scanned. See press coverage, our op-ed and our FOI.
Our investigation found that West Midlands Police used facial recognition at Birmingham’s Millennium Point conference centre in collaboration with police.
Our investigation found facial recognition surveillance had been used at Liverpool’s World Museum following advice from West Merseyside Police – but now both police and the museum deny it.
As well as police forces, private companies are also rolling out facial recognition technology to scan and identify members of the public, largely without their consent or knowledge.
Southern Co-op
The Southern Co-op has been using live facial recognition since 2021 in the south of England. 35 stores across Portsmouth, Bristol, Hove, Bournemouth and London are using the technology to spy on shoppers. To our knowledge, this is the first supermarket in the UK to permanently install facial recognition. The technology is provided by Facewatch.
In 2022, we issued a legal complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office about Facewatch and the Southern Co-op’s use of this technology.
Frasers Group
Frasers Group, owned by Mike Ashley, also use Facewatch’s live facial recognition technology in a number of its stores, which include Flannels, House of Fraser, Sports Direct and USC. In 2023, we wrote to Mike Ashley with nearly 50 parliamentarians, calling on him to stop scanning customers.
PimEyes
PimEyes is an online facial recognition search engine, which trawls the open internet for facial images. The technology allows anyone to upload an image of a person to their website, which is then processed using facial recognition technology to find potential matches from an index of billions of photos from the internet.
PimEyes places no limits on the type of images that may be used for search and has no safeguards to prevent people using their service to extract a library of photos of someone other than themselves, including children. In 2022, we submitted a legal complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office about the risk PimEyes poses to data rights and privacy.
List of private companies using live facial recognition in the UK
| Company | Supplier |
|---|---|
| Birdworld | Facewatch |
| Booths | |
| Budgens | Facewatch |
| B&M | Facewatch |
| Cadbury Garden Centre | |
| Costcutter | Facewatch |
| EAT 17 | Facewatch |
| Flannels | Facewatch |
| Gatwick Airport | |
| Gieves and Hawkes | Facewatch |
| Gordons Wine Bar | Facewatch |
| Haskins Garden Centres | Facewatch |
| Heathrow airport | |
| Hobbycraft | Facewatch |
| Home Bargains | Facewatch |
| Ladbrokes/Coral | |
| Lawrences Garages | Facewatch |
| Leicester Racecourse | Facewatch |
| Londis | Facewatch |
| Luton Town Football Club Shop | Facewatch |
| Manchester Airport | |
| Middlesborough Empire | OYN-X |
| Mole Avon Country Stores | Facewatch |
| Nisa Local | Facewatch |
| Palm Beach Casino | Facewatch |
| QD Stores | Facewatch |
| River Island | Facewatch |
| Rowans Bowling Alley | Herta Security |
| Ruxley Manor | Facewatch |
| RWB Auctions | Facewatch |
| Southern Co-Op | Facewatch |
| SPAR | Facewatch |
| Sports Direct | Facewatch |
| Symposium | Facewatch |
| The Gym | |
| Tian Tian Market | Facewatch |
| USC | Facewatch |
| Village Wholefoods, Clapham | Facewatch |
| Welcome Break | |
| Whitehall Garden Centres | Facewatch |
Other locations
Waltham Forest
The London council ran a secret trial of facial recognition surveillance for 3 days in 2019, without the knowledge of residents. It used 4 cameras in public spaces, including a train station and the borough’s main shopping street.
Read more
Bradford
We discovered that The Broadway shopping centre trialled facial recognition in August 2018, working with Customer Clever, Omega Security and Axis Communications. Customer Clever tweeted that the trial would identify “problem” individuals and “provide demographic information to the shopping centre”.
Brighton
We found evidence that facial recognition has been used at the Amex football stadium. This appears to be confirmed for the Albion v Crystal Palace match in January 2018.
FAQs
Police use of live facial recognition
How does police use of live facial recognition (LFR) work?
Live facial recognition (LFR) matches faces on live surveillance camera footage against a police watchlist in real time. Before a deployment, the police will prepare a watchlist, which can comprise of police-originated images, such as custody images from the police national database, and non police-originated images, for example publicly available, open source images or information shared by other public bodies.
At the deployment, a camera will capture a live video feed, from which the LFR software will detect human faces, extract the facial features and convert them into a biometric template to be compared against those held on the watchlist. The software generates a numerical similarity score to indicate how similar a captured facial image is to any face on the watchlist. Police set a threshold for these scores, and any matches above this threshold are flagged to the police, who may then decide to stop the individual.
What is the difference between live and retrospective facial recognition?
It is important to draw a distinction between live facial recognition and retrospective facial recognition. Live facial recognition uses a real-time video feed to biometrically scan the faces of members of the public almost instantaneously. Retrospective facial recognition (“RFR”) uses facial recognition software on either still images or video recordings taken in the past and compares the detected faces to photographs of known individuals held on photo databases.
Whilst RFR may have limited use as a forensic investigatory tool, subject to strict regulation, live facial recognition amounts to constant generalised surveillance. The British public would not be comfortable with fingerprint scanners on our high streets; there is no reason we should accept being subjected to a biometric police line-up either.
How have other states regulated LFR?
It is noteworthy that LFR is most enthusiastically embraced by authoritarian regimes, like Russia and China, whilst other democratic countries have taken measures to restrict its use. Several US states and cities have implemented bans and restrictions on the use of LFR and the EU has implemented the AI Act, which prohibits the use of LFR for law enforcement purposes, except in the most serious and strictly defined cases with a requirement of judicial authorisation. States must pass domestic law in order to use LFR and each use must be reported to data protection authority.
This is a far cry from the UK’s unregulated approach and lack of oversight.
Explore the full list of questions and answers here.
Shops' use of live facial recognition
How does live facial recognition (LFR) work in a retail context?
Is LFR is necessary to catch shoplifters?
Is shops' use of LFR just the modernisation of traditional security systems?
Live facial recognition (LFR) matches faces on live surveillance camera footage against a watchlist in real time. Companies add individuals who they want to exclude from a store to a tailored watchlist, which generally comprises of images taken from the customers’ previous visits to a store. Facial recognition software companies also offer ‘National Watchlists’ comprised of uploads of images and reports of incidents of crime and disorder from its customers across the UK.
A camera placed at the entrance of a store will then capture a live video feed, from which the LFR software will detect human faces, extract the facial features and convert them into a biometric template to be compared against those held on the watchlist. The software generates a numerical similarity score to indicate how similar a captured facial image is to any face on the watchlist. Any matches above this pre-set threshold are flagged to shop staff, who then deal with the individual in line with the retailers’ policy.
In the retail context, LFR is often touted as a solution to combat shoplifting and anti-social behaviour. Following the ICO’s investigation of Facewatch, the regulator held that in order to comply with data protection legislation and human rights law, retailers could only place individuals on a watchlist where they are serious or repeated offenders. The evidence we have collated demonstrates that, in practice, members of the public are placed on retailers watchlists for very trivial reasons, including for accusations of shoplifting valued at only £1. This shows that not only are LFR companies not complying with regulatory decisions, but also that the technology being used disproportionately as it is not just targeted at the most harmful perpetrators.
In the Justice and Home Affairs Committee Inquiry on ‘Tackling Shoplifting,’ Paul Gerrard, Public Affairs and Board Secreteriat Director at The Co-op Group, gave oral evidence that the company has no plans to implement LFR because it “cannot see what intervention it would drive helpfully.”1 Gerrard highlighted the ethical implications of employing a mass surveillance tool in a shop, as well as the heightened risk of violence and abuse to retail employees who have to confront shoppers if the LFR system flags them. His evidence reflects our position that there is no place for this invasive software from both the perspective of shoppers and retail workers.
There is also a significant divergence between the level of intrusion associated with traditional security systems versus facial recognition surveillance. LFR is an invasive form of biometric surveillance, which is linked to a deeply personal identifying feature (i.e., an individual’s face) and is deployed in public settings, often without the consent or knowledge of the person being subjected to checks. Additionally, unlike “traditional” blacklists held by shops, which might comprise of photographs of known local offenders, LFR could flag an individual in a shop they have not previously visited, producing a far greater magnitude for surveillance.
The private use of live facial recognition creates a new zone of privatised policing. It emboldens staff members to make criminal allegations against shoppers, without an investigation or any set standard of proof, and ban them from other stores employing the software. Clearly, when errors are made, this has profound implications for the lives of those accused, with little recourse for challenging the accusations. The lack of oversight and safeguards means that vulnerable individuals, including young people and those with mental health issues, are particularly at risk of being included on watchlists and leaves the door open to discriminatory and unfair decisions with significant impacts.
Explore the full list of questions and answers here.
TAKE ACTION
1
DONATE!
We’re crowdfunding to grow the biggest possible campaign of resistance to an unprecedented Government and retail expansion of facial recognition surveillance in the UK.
2
SIGN THE PETITION
Tell the Met Commissioner and Minister for Policing to stop using facial recognition surveillance now. If enough of us sign, they’ll be under pressure to reconsider the decision. Please share the petition with as many people as you can.
3
SUBSCRIBE
Don't miss out on live facial recognition alerts! Subscribe to our newsletter to stay informed on campaign actions.
Got a tip? If you have any information about facial recognition surveillance in the UK that might help our investigation, please let us know. Email us at info@bigbrotherwatch.org.uk or text us on Signal at +44 7514913266