Police use of facial recognition should be properly restricted, court told

It will be “impossible” for Londoners to travel without being scanned by facial recognition unless police use of the technology is properly restricted, the High Court has been told.

The Metropolitan Police is facing legal action over its use of live facial recognition (LFR), brought by a youth worker who was misidentified by the technology and the director of a civil liberties campaign group.

Shaun Thompson, who volunteers with young people affected by violence, and Silkie Carlo, from Big Brother Watch, are concerned that facial recognition could be used arbitrarily or in a discriminatory way.

Lawyers for the pair had their challenge heard at the High Court after Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood defended her plans to extend facial recognition to police forces across England and Wales, despite a consultation on its use not being complete.

Plans set out on Monday would see the number of vans increasing from 10 to 50 and be available to all forces across the two nations.

Dan Squires KC, for Mr Thompson and Ms Carlo, told the hearing on Tuesday that police use of the technology is increasing “exponentially”.

He said that in 2025, the Met Police used facial recognition 231 times and scanned around four million faces.

On one day, December 17 last year, facial recognition at Oxford Circus scanned more than 50,000 faces in a four-and-a-half-hour period, he added.

Mr Squires described facial recognition as “similar to a DNA profile”, turning people’s facial characteristics into coded data which is then compared with people on a “watch list”.

He said this can be done “at incredible speed with an enormous number of people”.

In written submissions, he said: “Amidst this escalation in use and in the number of people whose rights are affected, the way in which the MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) is using LFR is changing.

“Earlier this year, the MPS announced that the first permanent facial recognition cameras would be installed on buildings and lampposts in Croydon.”

The barrister continued: “If there are insufficient constraints on ‘where’ the police can use LFR, such that any transport hub, high street or other public location can be targeted, it will be impossible for people to travel across London without their biometric data being taken and processed.”

Anya Proops KC, for the Met Police, said that at any one time there are “literally thousands” of people that officers are looking for in London.

In written submissions, she said: “Locating these individuals within a vast, bustling metropolis is akin to looking for stray needles in an enormous, exceptionally dense haystack.”

She continued: “LFR can spot the ‘needles’ in a way that officers simply cannot, enabling sought persons who would otherwise go undetected, or be at large for much longer periods, to be located by the MPS.”

Ms Proops said that in 2025, up until September 18, officers made 801 arrests “specifically as a result of LFR” and that the intrusion into the public’s privacy is “only minimal”.

She also said that data taken from people not on a watchlist “is deleted a fraction of a second after it is created, precisely because the MPS has no interest in that data”.

She added: “It is only matched individuals whom the MPS has an interest in identifying/locating.”

The barrister continued: “The MPS uses LFR because it is a hugely effective policing tool, which substantially contributes to the MPS’s ultimate objective of keeping the public safe.”

The hearing, before Lord Justice Holgate and Mrs Justice Farbey, is due to conclude on Wednesday with a judgment expected at a later date.