Met Police to double live facial recognition use
31/07/2025 | Evening Standard
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) plans to more than double its use of live facial recognition technology (LFT), with up to ten deployments per week. The MPS stated that LFT, currently used four times weekly over two days, will now be deployed over five days a week as part of these changes. The expansion is part of a restructuring effort to offset the loss of 1,400 officers and 300 staff due to budget shortages. The overhaul also involves reassigning officers to bolster the public order crime team, addressing increased demand from protest-related incidents over the past two years.
Commenting on the article, Charlie Whelton, policy and campaigns officer at Liberty, said: "It's incredibly concerning to see an expansion of facial recognition, especially at a time when there is a complete lack of regulation governing its use.
"Any tech which has the potential to infringe on our rights in the way scanning and identifying millions of people does needs to have robust safeguards around its use, including ensuring that proper independent oversight is in place.
"The Government must legislate now to regulate this technology, protect people's rights, and make sure that the law on facial recognition does not get outpaced by the use."
In a statement responding to the news, Madeleine Stone, Senior Advocacy Officer at Big Brother Watch, said: "Facial recognition technology remains dangerously unregulated in the UK, meaning police forces are writing their own rules about how they use the technology and who they place on watchlists. This is an authoritarian technology that can have life-changing consequences when it makes mistakes, yet neither the public nor parliament has ever voted on it."
A related article by LBC looks at the impact the increase in LFT use will have on Londoners, from Police officers having to stand around waiting for the technology to alert them when potential criminals approach to the reversal of the presumption of innocence, a founding principle of British justice.
What is this page?
You are reading a summary article on the Privacy Newsfeed, a free resource for DPOs and other professionals with privacy or data protection responsibilities helping them stay informed of industry news all in one place. The information here is a brief snippet relating to a single piece of original content or several articles about a common topic or thread. The main contributor is listed in the top left-hand corner, just beneath the article title.
The Privacy Newsfeed monitors over 300 global publications, of which more than 6,250 summary articles have been posted to the online archive dating back to the beginning of 2020. A weekly roundup is available by email every Friday.