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 have been quietly rolling out facial recognition surveillance cameras, taking ‘faceprints’ of millions of people — often without you knowing about it. This is an enormous expansion of the surveillance state — and it sets a dangerous precedent worldwide. We must stop this dangerously authoritarian surveillance now.
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’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.
Make sure you personalise your email with your name, postcode, and your own reasoned arguments and feelings about police use of Orwellian live facial recognition surveillance in the UK.
If you're not sure who your MP is, you can find out here.
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 HEREThe 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:
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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.
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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.
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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
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 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
November 23, 2024
October 26, 2024
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.
But the possibilities are endless...
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.
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 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
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. Force webpage
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 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
The force has deployed live facial recognition technology four times in 2024, scanning over 320,000 people and making just seven arrests. Force webpage
The force has deployed live facial recognition technology twice at the River Festival in 2024, scanning over 400,000 people. Force webpage
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.
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, 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 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.
Company | Supplier |
---|---|
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 |
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 |
Nisa Local | Facewatch |
Palm Beach Casino | Facewatch |
QD Stores | 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 |
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
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”.
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.
1
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
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
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