Home Office to launch new watchdog and legal safeguards for police use of facial recognition

The Government has announced plans for new legislation governing police use of facial recognition technology, including the creation of an independent watchdog with powers to take enforcement action against forces that fail to comply with regulations.

The Home Office said the reforms will introduce a clearer legal framework for the use of facial recognition technology, alongside new safeguards to ensure it is used safely and fairly.

Under the proposals, police use of facial recognition will be required to be intelligence-led and proportionate, with the technology only deployed where officers believe wanted individuals could be present in an area.

The Government also intends to make clear that technologies used by law enforcement must be rigorously and independently tested for bias or discrimination on the grounds of age, gender or race.

An independent watchdog will be established to oversee police use of current and emerging technologies.

The regulator will advise on standards, scrutinise the use of technology and make recommendations to ministers on emerging risks.

In cases where police forces fail to comply with regulations, the watchdog will be able to pursue enforcement action, potentially including court injunctions preventing forces from using the technology.

The Home Office also confirmed plans to develop a new legal code of practice, in consultation with the regulator, setting out standards and rules governing police use of facial recognition.

A separate legal code will be developed for private businesses using facial recognition technology to tackle crime, including retailers.

Announcing the measures on Wednesday (4 November), the Home Office said the existing legal requirements governing facial recognition were spread across a "vast patchwork system" and needed to be replaced with a clearer and more consistent framework.

The reforms follow a public consultation which, according to the Government, demonstrated support for the technology but also highlighted the need for stronger safeguards.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: "Facial recognition technology has been the biggest breakthrough for catching criminals since DNA matching, already helping police take thousands of dangerous criminals off our streets.

"The benefits are clear, but we must ensure that its use is fair, safe and proportionate.

"It is right we put in place clear laws to ensure that the use of this technology is watertight, so the public can have confidence that these tools, which are vital to our safety, are used responsibly too."

The announcement follows an £11 million investment aimed at tripling the number of live facial recognition vans available to police forces in England and Wales.

The Home Office also said a new algorithm for retrospective facial recognition, which it said had been independently tested for accuracy and bias, would be available for police forces to adopt from next year.

Michael Birtwistle, Associate Director of The Ada Lovelace Institute, which has long campaigned for a specific law to provide oversight of police use of facial recognition, described the move as "a significant moment".

"We welcome the announcement of the Bill and Codes of Practice. However, the rhetoric of safeguards sits starkly at odds with increasingly contentious deployments by police forces, such as at protests and for non-criminal compliance," he added.

"The Bill will need to set a clear legal threshold for the seriousness of crimes that facial recognition can be used for, so that we don’t drift into using this powerful technology in harmful and disproportionate ways. It’s also vital that the proposed code of practice for private use is mandatory; there should be a very high bar outside of law enforcement bodies for scanning the public’s faces"

 "We look forward to working with the Home Office and parliamentarians and will continue to bring public views into that process to scrutinise the effectiveness of this new regulatory regime."

However, civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch said that the propsoed safeguards did not go far enough. Senior Advocacy Officer Jasleen Chaggar said:

“It is totally inadequate for the Home Office to respond with promises of codes of practice that offer little legal accountability if breached.

“The Home Office claims facial recognition is as powerful as fingerprinting and DNA, yet proposes far weaker legal protections for our facial biometric data which is captured constantly as we move about.

“Whilst planning a woefully weak framework for the future, the government is already rolling out a five-fold increase of live facial recognition cameras across the country, expanding this Orwellian mass surveillance in our train stations and allowing police to install permanent facial recognition cameras on our high streets.

“Actions speak louder than words, and the government’s support for expanding mass surveillance software is clear. Rather than preserving the public’s protections against police intrusion, the Home Office’s response to this damning public consultation shows they only plan to undercut them.

“We cannot accept the Government’s glacial pace, as more innocent people are falsely accused of crimes they did not commit and our freedom to live without constantly identifying ourselves to the state is already being eroded. The Government admits that this technology is in need of “tough new safeguards.” They must halt the expansion of its use until those safeguards are in place.”