Met to expand use of live facial recognition into central London by Christmas

The Metropolitan police is to expand its use of live facial recognition (LFR) technology, first into London’s West End by Christmas and then into a further six areas next year. The new cameras will be fixed, and could be attached to street furniture such as lamp-posts. Critics said the new plans mean tens of thousands of people will be forced into a “digital police lineup”. LFR scans the faces of those people passing its camera’s lens, and then compares it with a watchlist of wanted suspects. The Met has been trialling the technology and using vans deployed for a short time in some areas. It also used LFR via a static camera in Croydon, south London as an experiment, which Britain’s biggest force says was a success. Later this year new static cameras will be deployed in London’s West End and Soho, which have some of the highest crime rates in the British capital. The Met says the cameras will move location as officers spot crime trends. In 2027 it plans to place static LFR cameras in six further areas, and hopes local councils will contribute to the cost. The Met insists any decision to arrest following an alert on its LFR system is made by a human being. Live facial recognition is controversial because it predominantly surveils the faces of the innocent when they walk past the system’s cameras. Furthermore the algorithm used to power it can discriminate against black people. …