Big Brother Watch and other civil liberties organisations called on the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service to reverse the decision to deploy Live Facial Recognition technology at this year’s Notting Hill Carnival.
A legal challenge was launched last month by the anti-knife campaigner Shaun Thompson, a Black British man, who was wrongly identified by LFR as a criminal, held by police, and then faced demands from officers for his fingerprints.
The Commissioner has insisted on its use despite this backlash.
Responding to this decision, Rebecca Vincent, the interim director of Big Brother Watch, said: “With no legislation governing live facial recognition, no governmental framework as promised by the home secretary, and a crucial judicial review pending, why the rush to accelerate use of this Orwellian technology? We’re meant to operate on the basis of ‘policing by consent’, yet no one has consented to this, and certainly not the attendees of this cultural celebration. We all want criminals off the streets, but turning carnival into a mass police lineup is not the way to do it.”