Met Police to Expand Static Live Facial Recognition Across London’s West End

The Metropolitan Police plans to expand static live facial recognition across central London, with cameras due in the West End and Soho by the end of 2026 and a wider London rollout slated for next year. Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley is positioning the move as a scale-up of a pilot in Croydon that the force credits with 173 arrests.

The deployment uses fixed cameras rather than the dedicated vans that have carried most live facial recognition. In Croydon, cameras were mounted on existing street furniture and the feeds monitored remotely, freeing up specialist vans for use elsewhere. The cameras are static but not permanent, and can be repositioned as crime patterns shift. They are activated only during deployments when officers are present, and each operation runs against a bespoke watchlist created no more than 24 hours in advance and deleted immediately afterwards.

The force is leaning on its Croydon figures to make the case. The Met says the pilot ran across 24 operations between October 2025 and March 2026, producing 173 arrests, with more than 470,000 people passing the cameras and a single false alert. It says it has made more than 2,000 arrests using the technology since the start of 2024. “We want to build on our success by introducing this capability to the West End and Soho by December,” Rowley said, claiming that around 80 percent of Londoners support the use of facial recognition.

The expansion follows a legal green light. The Met won a judicial review in April, with the court concluding that its facial recognition policy complies with human rights law and contains clear and effective safeguards. Business groups including the New West End Company have welcomed the plan and are exploring funding, and Westminster City Council is working with police on deployments in Soho and the West End.

The technology remains contested across British policing. Other forces have pressed ahead, including Cambridgeshire Police in Peterborough, building on the Met’s own Croydon pilot results, even as accuracy and bias concerns have led Essex Police to pause its own use over bias risk.

Sources: Metropolitan Police

–

By Ali Nassar-Smith