Responding to reports that Chris Philp, the policing minister, has encouraged police forces to make greater use of live facial recognition technology Mark Johnson, Advocacy Manager at Big Brother Watch, said:
“Live facial recognition is a dystopian mass surveillance tool that turns innocent members of the public into walking ID cards.
“Across seven months, thirteen deployments, hundreds of officer hours, and over half a million faces scanned in 2023, police have made just three arrests from their use of this intrusive and expensive mass surveillance tool. Live facial recognition is not an efficient crime fighting tool, with the police’s own statistics revealing that more than 8 out of 10 facial recognition matches have been inaccurate since its introduction.
“Deploying this face-scanning surveillance to track the public is a dangerously authoritarian step that aligns the UK with the likes of Russia and China. Rather than promote its use, the Government should follow other liberal democracies around the world that are legislating to ban this Orwellian technology from public spaces.”
Notes:
Spokespeople are available for interviews. Contact Big Brother Watch’s 24h media line on 07730439257 or email info@bigbrotherwatch.org.uk
You can find a copy of the Times’s report here.
You can find more information regarding live facial recognition on Big Brother Watch’s website.