Metropolitan Police chief warns towards regulation updates amid substantial tech enlargement
Metropolitan Police commissioner Mark Rowley has set out the pressure’s plan to drastically upscale its use of synthetic intelligence (AI), dwell facial recognition (LFR) and drone applied sciences, as a part of a wider warning towards police-specific expertise laws.
Talking on 24 June, he introduced the case for change in how the Met approaches expertise deployment and integration, arguing that “policing at the moment will fail if it isn’t allowed to maintain tempo with criminals” who’re more and more “organised, networked and digital”.
To “regain the benefit”, Rowley mentioned the usage of new applied sciences was crucial, serving to police combine and exploit the colossal quantities of knowledge they already maintain, lower your expenses and construct belief.
As a part of his warning, Rowley additionally introduced a serious roll-out of drone operations throughout the capital, the introduction of static dwell facial recognition cameras throughout central London, and the elevated use of AI to analyse video proof in prison investigations.
Highlighting how the introduction of applied sciences similar to fingerprinting or body-worn video had been initially met with robust public concern once they had been launched, he mentioned “the lesson from practically 200 years of policing” is that whereas new tech usually meets resistance, it turns into “indispensable” when used accountability and proves its price.
Nonetheless, Rowley additionally took purpose at marketing campaign teams, who he accused of “slowing progress” with their requires laws on new applied sciences similar to LFR.
“We already function inside a sturdy legislative framework … and we’re overseen by not less than 5 regulators and commissioners,” he mentioned. “If each time a brand new functionality emerges, or we discover a new use case for information exploitation, now we have to attend for brand spanking new laws earlier than we use it, we’ll fail. We can’t legislate for each incremental growth in expertise. The tempo is just too quick, and the legislative course of is simply too sluggish.”
Public sector procurement
In an analogous vein, Rowley additionally referred to as for adjustments to public sector procurement in order that police are capable of leverage new applied sciences at a a lot quicker price than the present system permits, which “delivers outcomes months, if not years, after they’re wanted”.
He added {that a} “radical overhaul” was wanted to get new instruments within the arms of police, noting that whereas the House Workplace beforehand introduced a brand new nationwide policing mannequin in January 2026, “we now have to ship reform quickly, or it can solely be a matter of time earlier than we face a catastrophe {that a} less complicated mannequin with built-in, superior expertise would have averted.”
A part of this reform ought to embody correctly integrating presently disconnected information from throughout UK policing.
Rowley mentioned that whereas the Met itself can achieve actual worth in connecting the roughly 2,200 datasets it holds throughout greater than 600 techniques, analytics, automation and AI packages may assist join it to information held by the opposite 42 forces in England and Wales if there are adjustments to the construction of policing.
“The present price, complexity and delays in constructing fashionable expertise 43 instances over are prohibitive,” he mentioned. “With out reform, new expertise must be deployed into 43 completely different IT infrastructures. Criminals don’t respect boundaries, but our present mannequin makes nationwide information exploitation practically unimaginable.”
Rowley added that the general public is extra involved about police failing to “be part of the dots” in its personal information than the actual fact they used AI to take action.
Technological enlargement particulars
On the potential of latest applied sciences at the moment, Rowley mentioned AI-powered video analytics, for instance, can assist remodel the gathering and processing of knowledge from London’s huge CCTV community – one of many largest on this planet.
“We’re already seeing the influence in early use throughout 23 main investigations, with greater than 16,000 hours of CCTV,” he mentioned. “Video analytics diminished assessment time by 454 officer days, and that was simply in 23 investigations. That’s not simply effectivity. That’s officers freed as much as examine, to guard victims and to forestall additional hurt.”
On the enlargement of the Met’s nine-strong drone fleet – that are already deployed to round 200 incidents per week, with common response instances of roughly two minutes in contrast with the nine-minute common response of human officers – Rowley mentioned the ambition is to have drone protection in each London borough by this time subsequent yr.
“We’re seeing them peruse offenders, find lacking folks and scale back threat in actual time, however that is solely the beginning,” he mentioned, including that there’s additionally an ambition to combine the drone capabilities of London’s blue mild providers.
“This could not simply imply sharing drones,” mentioned Rowley. “It ought to imply sharing the underlying infrastructure that makes them efficient, the airspace administration, the launch websites, the connectivity, the info and management techniques. Our purpose needs to be a single, safe, coordinated infrastructure that permits police, fireplace and ambulance providers to function seamlessly as we defend the general public.”
The Met’s deliberate main enlargement of LFR – which he mentioned has contributed to greater than 2,000 arrests since 2024 – will see the pressure repair static LFR cameras on present road furnishings similar to lampposts.
All of this, mentioned Rowley, will assist guarantee better belief within the Met. “Expertise isn’t just lowering crime,” he added. “It’s constructing belief. Officers and workers will stay on the coronary heart of each choice. What this strategy does is equip good folks with higher instruments. It doesn’t imply abandoning ethics – fairly the other. It means strengthening them.
“There shall be human oversight underpinned by clear values and accountability at each stage,” mentioned Rowley.
Nonetheless, the continued ramping up of LFR by police has been closely criticised by a number of digital rights teams, native councillors and London Meeting members.
‘Strong’ authorized frameworks?
In arguing that clear, constant ideas – underpinned by robust oversight, accountability and public transparency – are a more practical manner of governing how police use expertise than “a separate authorized framework for every new functionality”, Rowley highlighted the patchwork of laws that already exists.
This particularly contains the Human Rights Act, the Investigatory Powers Act, the Information Safety Act, and the UK Common Information Safety Regulation (GDPR), which Rowley described as “strong”.
Using LFR by police in England and Wales – starting with the Met’s deployment at Notting Hill Carnival in August 2016 – has already ramped up massively in recent times, however there has up to now been minimal public debate or session.
Though the House Workplace has claimed for years that there’s already “complete” authorized framework in place, it formally launched a 10-week session on the usage of LFR by UK police in December 2025, with a view to introducing a brand new authorized framework for this and different biometric applied sciences.
Firstly of the session – which the House Workplace continues to be but to formally reply to – the division mentioned that though a “patchwork” authorized framework for police facial recognition exists (together with for the growing use of the retrospective and “operator-initiated” variations of the expertise), it doesn’t give police themselves the boldness to “use it at considerably better scale … nor does it constantly give the general public the boldness that it will likely be used responsibly”.
It added that the present guidelines governing police LFR use are “sophisticated and obscure”, and that an unusual member of the general public could be required to learn 4 items of laws, police nationwide steering paperwork and a variety of detailed authorized or information safety paperwork from particular person forces to completely perceive the premise for LFR use on their excessive streets.
Though the Met’s use of LFR was lately challenged in a judicial assessment, the case was in the end dismissed by the Excessive Courtroom on the premise that the pressure’s LFR coverage doc offered adequate constraints to forestall abuse and guarantee compliance with human rights legal guidelines.
Rowley mentioned the courtroom “knocked that problem down fully”, including that it reveals “there’s a authorized framework”.
Requested by Pc Weekly how the pressure is coping with the continued unlawful retention of hundreds of thousands of custody photographs by the House Workplace – which can be utilized in LFR watchlists and which successive biometrics commissioners for England and Wales have flagged as a serious difficulty – Rowley mentioned “they’re not feeding into LFR”, including that the pressure is “cautious” to deal with people who find themselves needed to the police.
“In the event you’ve had a warning for the 14-year-old shoplifting, you’re a 30-year-old, and also you get stopped as a result of we’ve stored your picture, and we’re utilizing it in our facial recognition, that will be disgraceful,” he mentioned. “And, in fact, we’re not doing that. If we had been doing something like that, I’m certain the Excessive Courtroom would have completely castigated our strategy.”
Pc Weekly was current for the judicial assessment, which revolved round whether or not the Met’s coverage doc permits an excessive amount of discretion over the place and who the expertise targets. The illegal retention of custody photographs and their potential use in LFR watchlists was not addressed by both facet, nor talked about in any of the submissions to the courtroom.
Whereas unrelated to the Met’s use of LFR, it was reported in February 2026 that Alvi Choudhury – a software program engineer by no means convicted of a criminal offense in his life – was arrested and detained off the again of an LFR match, regardless of having by no means been concerned within the alleged housebreaking incident, as a result of Thames Valley Police had been nonetheless holding and utilizing a five-year-old custody picture of him.
This picture was taken by the pressure after Choudhury was beforehand detained, however by no means charged or not to mention convicted, over an altercation between two teams in 2021.
