Facial recognition can be legally used by police forces in the UK
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Facial recognition can be legally used by police forces in the UK, judges have ruled.
As the world’s first case against the controversial technology concluded, two leading judges dismissed the case brought by human rights campaign group Liberty on behalf of Ed Bridges, a Cardiff resident whose face was scanned by South Wales Police during a trial of facial recognition.
The court declared that use of live facial recognition “met the requirements of the Human Rights Act”.
The judges also ruled that existing data protection law offered enough safeguards for members of the public whose faces were scanned by facial recognition cameras, and that South Wales Police had considered the implications.
Live facial recognition works by scanning every face in a crowd and comparing them to images of wanted individuals on a watch list.
Police say the technology is needed to combat serious crimes, such as terrorism, without putting an impossible strain on police resources.
Civil liberties campaigners say it infringes the fundamental human right to privacy, and that the current law is not adequate protection given the scale at which it could operate.
