Exclusive: Biometrics commissioners say face-scanning not as effective as claimed and new laws needed to regulate use
-
How does live facial recognition work and how many police forces use it?
-
Guilty until proven innocent: shoppers falsely identified by facial recognition
Britain’s biometrics watchdogs have warned that national oversight of AI-powered face scanning to catch criminals is lagging far behind the technology’s rapid growth.
With the Metropolitan police almost doubling the number of faces they scan in London over the past 12 months and a rising use of the technology by retailers in the UK, Prof William Webster, the biometrics commissioner for England and Wales, said the “slow pace of legislation was trying to catch up with the real world” and “the horse had gone before the cart”.
An independent audit of the Met’s use of facial recognition technology (FRT) has been indefinitely postponed after the police requested delays.
Polling shows 57% of people believe the systems are “another step towards turning the UK into a surveillance society”.
A whistleblower claimed shop-based face-scanning systems had sometimes been misused by shop or security staff “maliciously” adding members of the public to watchlists.
