Live facial recognition to be expanded across the UK with more police forces using the technology
The government says this technology will be introduced to catch 'high-harm' offenders, with new rules set to be drawn up this autumn to ensure 'safeguards and oversight," while balancing public and experts' views on how this tech should be used.
The technology is already in use in some areas of the country but Wednesday's announcement will see a further ten vans equipped with cameras rolled out across seven police forces, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley and Hampshire, over the coming weeks.
Currently, the rules say LFR can only be used to check against a police watchlist of wanted criminals, suspects and those subject to bail or court order conditions, such as sex offenders.
Police compiled this list before a deployment of LFR technology and say it is intelligence-led and targeted to the specific area in which they are working.
Signs are positioned to alert the public that LFR is being used, and the cameras scan the faces of every individual who walks by.
These scans are compared against the criminal watchlist and if there's no match, are automatically deleted.
When the technology thinks a person matches someone on the list, it alerts a team of officers, showing them a comparison of the photos in order for them to decide whether to stop them.
The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said they would be focused on identifying sex offenders or 'people wanted for the most serious crimes who the police have not been able to find.'
Addressing specific concerns over its accuracy and use, the Home Office added: 'The algorithm being used in the vans has been independently tested and will only be operated in specific circumstances and with robust oversight.'
Privacy campaigners have previously voiced concerns about a potential lack of regulation and transparency over the expansion of the technology.
There have also been concerns raised over racial bias in the system and the accuracy with which it operated under certain conditions.
The technology was tested by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) who looked at whether the algorithm had any racial bias.
The NPL concluded that the threshold, which can be set by police forces, at which the machine alerts officers to a match does include a racial bias at certain low levels of confidence.
Above a certain level however, their research showed no racial bias was present.
Police forces insist the technology is now never operated below this level of confidence in a match and all data on deployments, including the threshold at which the technology was operating that day, is publicly available online.
Forces already deploying live facial recognition have used it to arrest rape, domestic abuse, knife crime and robbery suspects as well as sex offenders breaching their conditions.
Lindsey Chiswick, National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) lead for facial recognition, said it had already been used 'to great success, locating thousands of wanted offenders, or others breaching their bail conditions.
She added: 'I am confident that the increased use of this technology will continue to support the safety of communities across the country moving forward."
South Wales Police, who have been using the technology for some years and are co-ordinating this national rollout said they understood the public's concerns.
They highlighted however that in their own force, the use of LFR had "never resulted in a wrongful arrest" and there had "been no false alerts for several years as the technology and our understanding has evolved.'
As well as concerns of bias, campaign group Big Brother Watch are worried about what the wider rollout of this technology means for privacy.
Interim Director, Rebecca Vincent told ITV News the timing of this rollout was concerning.
"We don't yet have any legislation or framework to govern the use of this. The Home Secrtary has said that's coming, but why the rush to get more vans on the street when we don't yet have that oversight and accountability."
She added: "Sometimes critics of groups like ours say 'nothing to hide, nothing to fear.'
"That's not quite right - we have the presumption of innocence in this country.
"What live facial recognition does is reverse that. It treats us as a nation of suspects until proven otherwise."
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