A legal challenge against the Metropolitan Police’s use of live facial recognition technology is set to be heard in the High Court.
The challenge has been brought by Silkie Carlo, director of civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, and Shaun Thompson, who was held by officers in London Bridge after being misidentified by a facial recognition camera in January, 2024.
“It could be effectively a blanket cover of the whole city… effectively the whole city would feel like an open prison. It is a breach of privacy and freedom of expression rights.”
Silkie Carlo stated that: “This case could have ramifications for the rest of the country. We are challenging the Met Police use of live facial recognition on the basis of where they can use it.”
“Because they can use the cameras in so many places it becomes so broad that it is hard to find places that they cannot use it. It could be effectively a blanket cover of the whole city.”
“The UK is one of the most surveyed countries in the world in proportion of cameras to people and London is a more surveyed city than any other in the world apart from Beijing.”
“Live facial recognition is software that can be used with camera feeds which are already there. A lot of infrastructure is already in place and can be quickly and easily turned into live facial recognition.”
“Under the current system not a single law has the words ‘facial recognition’ in it. The government has not even tabled a debate on live facial recognition.”
“If you have mass surveillance, it eats away at the right to freedom of expression. If you want to go to a protest or march you will be worried that you will be in a permanent police line-up.”