The UK’s North Yorkshire Police will deploy live facial recognition in York city center on September 23, marking the force’s first planned use of the technology to compare people passing its cameras with a police watchlist.
Jo Coles, the area’s deputy mayor for policing, fire and crime, confirmed the operation after seeking assurances on data protection, oversight, deployment criteria and the risk of the technology being used for progressively wider purposes. She said she would continue questioning the force through public oversight meetings.
The system converts a detected face into a biometric template and compares it with watchlist entries. A similarity score above a configured threshold generates an alert. Police say an alert does not establish identity: a trained officer must review the images before deciding whether to intervene.
Watchlists are prepared for a specific operation and can include wanted or suspected offenders, people wanted on recall to prison, and missing people assessed as being at increased risk. Inclusion must have a necessary and proportionate policing purpose.
Images and templates that produce no alert are deleted immediately. The underlying CCTV recording is normally retained for up to 31 days, with longer retention permitted for a lawful reason. Police say people will not be stopped solely for avoiding the camera area.
The York operation follows a wider expansion of live facial recognition across English police forces. A Home Office-funded program provided ten vehicles for seven forces, extending use beyond the early deployments associated with the Metropolitan Police and South Wales Police.
Bedfordshire Police subsequently introduced the technology in Bedford town center, using mobile cameras and officers on the ground to review potential matches. Those deployments have accompanied continuing scrutiny of how watchlists are assembled, how images are retained, and how officers assess machine-generated alerts.
Coles said police should be able to use new tools as crime changes, while maintaining safeguards and transparent oversight. Members of the public can submit questions to her online public meetings about the force’s use of the technology.
North Yorkshire Police plans to publish deployment results within seven days. Advance notices, signs, leaflets and officers available to answer questions form part of its public-information arrangements for the York operation.
Sources: York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority, North Yorkshire Police
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
