Scottish minister clarifies police facial-recognition strategy
Scotland will be sure that any police use of facial recognition know-how is “lawful, efficient, proportionate and grounded in respect for human rights,” in response to the Scottish justice secretary.
Writing to Scottish biometrics commissioner Brian Plastow – who urged the Scottish authorities in late Might 2026 to introduce main laws for the police use of stay facial-recognition (LFR) know-how – Neil Grey, the cupboard secretary for justice, mentioned the Scottish authorities will actively be monitoring how Westminster approaches the event of a brand new authorized framework for the usage of biometrics in legislation enforcement.
Grey additionally mentioned that whereas Scottish policing our bodies are no less than two years away from having a workable enterprise case for the know-how, he has taken word of Plastow’s “view that the introduction of main laws to Parliament would symbolize the optimum strategy to establishing a statutory foundation and enabling framework for the restricted and proportionate use of LFR by Police Scotland”.
Grey added though it will be “untimely” for the Scottish authorities to decide to main laws on LFR given these circumstances, it stands able to work with Plastow and others to make sure that any use of the know-how is “lawful, efficient, proportionate and grounded in respect for human rights”.
He additional added that any draft laws for police biometrics printed in England and Wales will likely be “rigorously assessed” by the Scottish authorities for each its applicability and implications.
The clarification on how Scotland will strategy police LFR follows the Kings Speech in mid-Might 2026, which set out the intention of Westminster to deliver ahead laws on this session of Parliament.
Writing to the justice secretary on 26 Might, Plastow famous that as a result of fast advances in know-how are likely to outpace the legislation, their deployment in a legislation enforcement context additionally means they have a tendency to “emerge and proliferate” in a authorized vacuum, as exemplified by the scenario with LFR in England and Wales.
Highlighting House Workplace plans to massively increase its funding and use of LFR and different synthetic intelligence (AI)-powered biometrics, Plastow added it will be “inconceivable” that Police Scotland wouldn’t need entry to the identical applied sciences.
He added the know-how could possibly be significantly useful in, for instance, coping with severe organised crime, counter-terror policing operations, county-lines drug dealing, and as a part of a strategic response to the nationwide emergency of male violence in direction of girls and ladies.
“[However,] in England and Wales, the strategy has been to place the cart earlier than the horse as evidenced by the know-how being launched inside a authorized vacuum with main laws proposed solely after the house secretary has already made a funding resolution to help its adoption and roll out to all police forces in England and Wales,” he wrote.
“Subsequently, my function in writing to you is to advocate a distinct strategy for Scotland and to ask ministers to think about bringing ahead main laws in Scotland to create a statutory foundation and enabling framework for the restricted and proportionate use of LFR in Scotland by Police Scotland inside legislative guardrails authorised by the Scottish Parliament for its use.”
He mentioned that in contrast to in England and Wales, this strategy may assist “set up authorized and democratic legitimacy in addition to public accountability”, including whereas there are different routes to introducing police LFR in Scotland (reminiscent of via the biometrics commissioner’s Statutory Code of Follow launched in November 2022), this could “carry much less democratic legitimacy and accountability and wouldn’t be uncovered to full Parliamentary debate”.
Grey responded to Plastow that such another route would nonetheless require Scottish ministers to approve modifications to the Code of Follow and “lay draft affirmative rules” to deliver these revisions into impact – a course of that might nonetheless be open to Parliamentary scrutiny if the Scottish Parliament decides to train it.
LFR in England and Wales
Whereas the usage of 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 lately, there has up to now been minimal public debate or session, with the House Workplace claiming for years that there’s already “complete” authorized framework in place.
Nonetheless, in December 2025, the House 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 know-how ought to be regulated.
Initially of its LFR session – which the House Workplace continues to be but to formally reply to – the division mentioned 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 know-how), 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 knowledge safety paperwork from particular person forces to totally perceive the premise for LFR use on their excessive streets.
Responding to Plastow, Grey mentioned: “Whereas the findings of the UK authorities’s session, and its formal response, are nonetheless to be printed, the finer element of any draft laws as soon as printed will likely be rigorously assessed by the Scottish Authorities when it comes to their applicability to, and implications for, Scotland.”
Nonetheless, regardless of not having even formally responded to the session – and earlier than the now-dismissed judicial assessment case towards the Met’s use of the know-how had even been heard – the House Workplace introduced sweeping reform to UK policing in January 2026, which included important funding into the LFR capabilities of police in England and Wales.
Laptop Weekly has contacted the House Workplace on two events about when it can publicly reply to the session however is but to obtain a response.
Session response up to now
Regardless of this, many organisations – together with regulatory our bodies, civil society teams and lecturers – have begun posting their session responses on-line.
Whereas a consensus is rising across the want for clear regulatory necessities round, for instance, oversight, safeguards and what constitutes proportionate use, there are additionally factors of divergence, significantly over how excessive thresholds ought to be set for the police use of highly effective biometric applied sciences.
For instance, whereas some say these applied sciences are legitimate and useful policing instruments, others have argued that the extent of intrusion on folks’s rights means there are exceedingly few instances, if any, the place they need to be allowed.
Nonetheless, all responses printed up to now agreed that, given the threats to rights introduced by biometric surveillance applied sciences, it’s not an choice to proceed with no devoted authorized framework.
For William Webster, the biometrics and surveillance digital camera commissioner for England and Wales, the success of any new framework relies on efficient oversight by “an impartial regulatory physique with ample powers and assets to conduct its enterprise and significantly to allow acceptable use of know-how and to establish and sanction illegal actions”.
He added in his session response that the scope for each particular person and society-level harms imply voluntary self-regulator “is not going to be ample to make sure compliance with requirements”, and that any new regulator “should make compliance necessary, provide proactive oversight with an inspection and compliance regime, and be capable to enact swift cures the place compliance is just not evident”.
Webster additionally mentioned the regulator should be empowered to publish codes of follow to operationalise the important thing rules of the framework, together with reasonableness, proportionality and evaluation of hurt.
There have been repeated calls from each Parliament and civil society over a few years for the police’s use of facial recognition to be regulated.
This consists of three separate inquiries by the Justice and House Affairs Committee into shoplifting, police algorithms and police facial recognition; two of the UK’s former biometrics commissioners, Paul Wiles and Fraser Sampson; an impartial authorized assessment by Matthew Ryder QC; the UK’s Equalities and Human Rights Fee; and the Home of Commons Science and Expertise Committee, which known as for a moratorium on stay facial recognition way back to July 2019.
