Live FRT Leads to Arrests in England’s Bedfordshire County

Police in the English county of Bedfordshire used Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology during the Bedford River Festival, resulting in arrests. The festival, held July 20-21, saw LFR systems deployed along two main thoroughfares, which led to the arrest of two individuals with court warrants.

While one of these individuals was identified for an additional offense during the stop, the technology also flagged four individuals subject to court-imposed conditions or notification requirements.

“We are really pleased with the results from the Live Facial Recognition deployment and the entire force at the River Festival,” said Detective Superintendent Aman Dhaliwal, head of the LFR team at Bedfordshire Police. “The arrest figure from across the weekend shows that the messaging in the lead up to the event, and the policing during it, were effective in deterring criminal activity, which LFR certainly played a big part in achieving.”

The overall number of arrests during the festival weekend was ten, a figure that Bedfordshire Police attributed to effective pre-event messaging and policing efforts. A police spokesperson noted that the significant reduction in criminal activity was partly due to the visible policing footprint and public awareness campaigns.

Despite its success, the deployment of LFR was not without controversy, with human rights organization Liberty criticizing the use of such technology.

“We should all be concerned at what this means for our rights – to privacy, to protest, and to freedom from discrimination,” said a spokesperson for the group. “The expansion of this technology to Bedfordshire Police is of grave concern.”

In response to these concerns, Bedfordshire Police reassured the public that the LFR system is designed to protect privacy. Images and biometric data of individuals who do not trigger alerts are deleted immediately and irretrievably, a feature independently tested and verified by the National Physics Laboratory.

The use of facial recognition by law enforcement agencies around the world has been under some scrutiny in recent weeks. Earlier this month, the city of Detroit settled a lawsuit filed by Robert Williams, a Black man wrongfully arrested for shoplifting, resulting in significant changes to the Detroit Police Department’s (DPD) policies around the use of facial recognition technology.

Williams was mistakenly identified and arrested in 2020 after facial recognition software incorrectly flagged his driver’s license photo as a match to a suspect in a 2018 theft. The incident, which caused emotional distress to Williams and his family, has led to new DPD policies prohibiting arrests based solely on facial recognition results.

Source: Bedford Independent

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July 24, 2024 – by Tony Bitzionis