UK to map knife crime hotspots and deploy targeted live facial recognition
Published: 09/04/2026
| UK Government
The Home Office has announced that a new national mapping technology will be deployed alongside live facial recognition (LFR) to combat knife crime. The technology works by identifying high-risk hotspots with a precision of 0.1 square kilometres. This micro-geographical data allows police forces to pinpoint the specific streets and times where incidents occur most frequently.
The government has allocated over £26 million to the Knife Crime Concentrations Fund, supporting 27 police forces across England and Wales that account for 90% of the country’s knife crime.
In addition to LFR, enhanced physical surveillance measures are to be deployed, including the installation of CCTV cameras, knife arches, and increased police patrols to identify and apprehend offenders in real time.
Additional reporting in The Times (£).
£ - The Times article requires a subscription.
Training Announcement: The IAPP Certified Information Privacy Technologist (CIPT) is a privacy-focused professional IT certificate from the IAPP that addresses data protection requirements and controls within complex technological environments. It explores the data lifecycle, privacy risk models and frameworks, the principles of Privacy by Design, and the role of privacy-enhancing technologies within the organisation. Find out more.
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 3,250 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.