Government funds controversial facial recognition technology

The Home Office plans to invest more in facial recognition technology for the police despite warnings that it could be illegal and concerns over surveillance.

A number of police forces already use the technology to automatically identify people from social media images and CCTV recordings.

Its use has been controversial in live-settings where people who are not suspected of any crimes could be checked against a police database and potentially arrested if the system delivers a false positive.

Police have argued that the technology is accurate 95% of the time but critics have noted that this means for every 1,000 faces it scans there will be 50 incorrect matches.

The technology, which works by creating a geometric profile of individuals' faces and comparing that profile against a database of other facial profiles, is currently unregulated for police use.

To the concern of independent regulators, MPs, and civil liberties groups, police forces in England and Wales have developed a database of more 16 million facial profiles - equivalent to almost 25% of the population - to use with the technology.

The former Biometrics Commissioner, Alastair MacGregor QC, warned the Government that "a searchable police database of facial images arguably represents a much greater threat to individual privacy than searchable databases of DNA profiles or fingerprints".

He also warned the Government that it risked inviting a legal challenge for failing to comply with a High Court judgement from 2012 in which Lord Justice Richards called for the policy on mugshot images to be revised.

Lord Justice Richards wrote: "It should be clear in the circumstances that a 'reasonable further period' for revising the policy is to be measured in months, not years."

It took five years for the Government to publish its review of custody images, and the Biometrics Strategy has still not been published.

The Home Office has said it will publish its biometrics strategy "in due course".

Another live use facial recognition technology will be used at Notting Hill Carnival in London over the August bank holiday weekend.

The police have described the use of the technology at the event as a pilot, despite also using the technology last year, when it failed to identify any suspects.

Civil liberties groups have written to Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police's commissioner, to complain about the roll-out.

Martha Spurrier, the director of Libety, said: "There are no laws, no rules and no oversight for facial recognition technology - not to mention the serious concerns about its accuracy.

"It is a shady enterprise neither our MPs nor the public have consented to or know enough about."

"There are significant doubts as to whether deploying this technology in public spaces can ever be lawful - especially without proper Parliamentary debate.

"The Met must urgently abandon its plans so that the thousands of people hoping to enjoy the carnival weekend know their police force will protect their human rights."