The UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has issued a warning that the Metropolitan Police’s use of live facial recognition technology (LFRT) is “likely to be unlawful” and risks breaching fundamental rights. The intervention challenges the government’s expanding use of the controversial surveillance tool across British policing.
Rights Concerns and Legal Context
In a formal statement, the EHRC said the Met’s current policy for deploying LFRT threatens rights to privacy, freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly under the European Convention on Human Rights. The regulator stressed that there must be “clear rules which guarantee that live facial recognition technology is used only where necessary, proportionate and constrained by appropriate safeguards.”
The warning comes as the Home Office has doubled the number of LFRT-equipped vans to ten, extending deployments across seven police forces beyond London. Officers have also conducted searches against more than 150 million images drawn from passport and immigration databases, intensifying concerns over surveillance scale and scope.
Bias, Safeguards and Oversight
Civil liberties groups and academics have long argued that LFRT carries discriminatory risks, particularly for people of colour. The EHRC echoed these concerns, citing the absence of legislation specifically regulating the technology and highlighting the lack of transparency around how watchlists are built. Campaigners point to high-profile misidentifications such as that of Shaun Thompson, a Black man wrongly flagged by the technology, as evidence of systemic risks.
The regulator’s intervention comes just days before the technology is due to be used at the Notting Hill Carnival, where crowds can exceed two million. By contrast, the European Union has taken a stricter approach, moving to ban most real-time facial recognition in public spaces under its AI Act, save for narrow exceptions under judicial oversight. This sharpens the divide between UK and EU privacy regimes.
Public and Political Reaction
Big Brother Watch, a leading civil liberties group, welcomed the EHRC’s findings and signalled further legal action, warning that police have treated the lack of explicit legislation as a green light for unrestricted deployment. Amnesty International also raised alarm, calling the practice discriminatory and urging immediate limits.
Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, a Labour peer and former director of Liberty, described live facial recognition as “incredibly intrusive” and “completely outside the law.” She argued that the technology’s use in crowded public spaces undermines fundamental freedoms and erodes public trust in policing.
The government is considering new legislation to provide a clearer legal framework for police use of LFRT, though campaigners warn that without strict safeguards, the risks to rights will persist. For now, the EHRC’s warning places fresh pressure on ministers and the Met to justify the technology’s expansion in the face of mounting legal and ethical concerns.
Sources: BBC News, The Guardian, UK Human Rights Blog, The Week
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By Ji-seo Kim
