Metropolitan Police wants efficient constraints on reside facial recognition use, courtroom hears
There’s nearly nothing within the Metropolitan Police coverage to constrain the place it deploys reside facial recognition (LFR), the Excessive Courtroom has heard throughout a judicial evaluation into whether or not the pressure is utilizing the expertise lawfully.
Introduced by anti-knife campaigner Shaun Thompson, who was wrongfully recognized by the Met’s system and subjected to a protracted cease consequently, and privateness group Large Brother Watch, the authorized problem revolved round whether or not there are significant safeguards in place to successfully constrain how the Met makes use of the expertise.
Over the course of the two-day listening to, held on the Royal Courts of Justice, legal professionals for Thompson and Large Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo argued that the Met’s use of LFR doesn’t fulfill legality checks, as a result of the coverage dictating how officers select to deploy it’s overly broad, opening the expertise to arbitrary use.
Particularly, they harassed their view that, in apply, the coverage basically permits the Met to deploy the expertise in any a part of London they select, as a result of the one standards limiting the place the Met can deploy it’s whether or not it’s a “permitted location”.
The three conditions the place the Met can use LFR are in “crime hotspots”, together with “entry routes” to these hotspots; exterior public occasions or important nationwide infrastructure beneath “protecting safety operations”; and places based mostly on intelligence about “the probably location [of] … sought individuals”.
Noting that the pressure commonly makes use of watchlists with 16,000 to 17,000 pictures, they added that there isn’t a actual connection between the “who” and “the place” when deploying in apply, which dangers folks being placed on watchlists on the possibility they’ll cross an LFR digital camera.
Additionally they added that of the three use circumstances beneath which the Met can deploy LFR, the crime hotspot strategy is used within the overwhelming majority of deployments, whereas the opposite two use circumstances have solely been relied on a handful of occasions.
‘Permitted places’
Based mostly on their studying of the Met’s LFR coverage and its deployment patterns, the legal professionals contended that the one factor in apply constraining alternative is whether or not the deployment space is a “permitted location”, and that the pressure depends on the hotspot use case as a result of it basically permits them to drop the expertise the place they please.
Highlighting how huge swathes of London are designated as “crime hotspots” by the pressure – and the truth that the Met has performed a number of deployments on the identical day – utilizing the identical watchlists, however in fully completely different hotspot places – they argued this implies there may be little or no hyperlink between the “who” and “the place” questions of LFR’s use.
Different points raised by Thompson and Carlo’s legal professionals embody the broad definition of “severe crime” used on this context (which is whether or not the alleged offence would result in jail for a 12 months or extra, a standards they stated doesn’t seem in every other police or authorities definition of great crime); how the mass scale of LFR’s use and its automated nature elevates the extent of intrusion; and the way the Met has chosen to border the “why” standards of the deployment.
Highlighting how the Met basically frames the “why” of LFR as “finding sought individuals”, the legal professionals argued this isn’t a constraint on the expertise, and easily an outline of the way it works.
Police arguments
Police legal professionals, nevertheless, contended that Thompson and Carlo’s problem is a “proportionality declare dressed up as a legality declare”, and that there are a variety of protections towards police utilizing LFR arbitrarily.
For instance, they famous the LFR coverage “leaves no room for capricious decision-making” as a result of it incorporates particular use circumstances on when LFR might be deployed; requires officers to create written justifications for his or her selections which are then authorised by one other, extra senior officer; doesn’t enable officers to dictate what counts as a hotspot; and compels them to conduct a deployment-specific evaluation towards rights enshrined within the European Conference on Human Rights.
Finally, they argued that these and different measures taken collectively means coverage units a roadmap meaning officers’ discretion is sufficiently restricted, and that it creates an “administrative surroundings” by which the principles of the coverage turn out to be inescapable.
Met legal professionals additionally argued that the claimant’s case was a full-scale assault on overt LFR by the police, and that if the courtroom sided of their favour, it could “considerably” hinder the pressure’s capability to make use of the expertise successfully.
Highlighting how the “main worth” of LFR is to search out folks whose location is presently unknown to the police, Met legal professionals added that confining the pressure’s deployment to “use case C” – beneath which LFR can be utilized at “a selected location the place the [Met] has concluded, based mostly on particular intelligence, that an individual who’s eligible for inclusion on a LFR Watchlist … is more likely to be at that location” – would successfully “neuter the worth of the expertise to policing”.
The judges – Lord Justice Holgate and Mrs Justice Farbey – will now deliberate on the arguments put ahead, with a judgement handed down at a later date.
A day earlier than the judicial evaluation listening to began, dwelling secretary Shabana Mahmood introduced plans to considerably increase the usage of facial recognition by police forces throughout England and Wales, regardless of there being an ongoing session a few new authorized framework for the expertise.
Whereas the usage of LFR by police – starting with the Met’s deployment at Notting Hill Carnival in August 2016 – has already ramped up massively in recent times, there has to this point been minimal public debate or session, with the Residence Workplace claiming for years that there’s already “complete” authorized framework in place.
Nonetheless, in December 2025, the Residence Workplace launched a 10-week session on the usage of LFR by UK police, permitting events and members of the general public to share their views on how the controversial expertise ought to be regulated.
The division has stated that though a “patchwork” authorized framework for police facial recognition exists (together with for the rising 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 bizarre 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 knowledge safety paperwork from particular person forces to totally perceive the idea for LFR use on their excessive streets.
