New plans to expand police facial recognition

Facial recognition technology could be used more often by UK police forces, according to new plans announced by the Home Office.

A 10-week publication consultation on how to regulate the technology and protect people's privacy has been launched, which could pave the way for new laws.

Facial recognition has been used by some police forces since 2017 to find wanted suspects and vulnerable people, as well as monitoring live events.

Policing and crime minister, Sarah Jones, believes a wider roll-out could mark "the biggest breakthrough" in catching criminals since DNA analysis. But rights groups are worried the technology is too invasive.

One of the proposals the government is seeking opinions on is the creation of a regulator overseeing police use of biometrics and facial recognition.

Any new laws informed by the consultation would take about two years to be passed by Parliament, the Home Office said.

They would primarily affect policing in England and Wales, but would also be relevant to certain powers in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The public consultation involves an online survey, which can be accessed on the government website. Alternatively, people can email or write to the Home Office.

There are currently three different types of facial recognition technology available to police:

According to the Home Office, the Metropolitan Police has made 1,300 arrests using the technology since 2023, including rapists and violent offenders.

The government invested £12.6m in facial recognition in 2024, of which £2.8m was spent on live recognition.

A further £6.6m has been invested this year supporting the adoption, evaluation, and roll-out of facial recognition technology. This includes £3.9m for the development of a new, national facial matching service. A test of this will be rolled out sometime in 2026.

It aims to give police a new way to carry out retrospective searching and have another national database of custody images.

The new database, which would be run by the Home Office, could hold millions of images, similar to the numbers on the police national database.

The facial matching service is also being trialled separately to help identify and find people being sought by immigration enforcement.

The Home Office believes facial recognition technology could also help to identify and arrest prisoners released by mistake, and would only be used in time-limited, focused deployments.

"Facial recognition is the biggest breakthrough for catching criminals since DNA matching," Jones said.

"We will expand its use so that forces can put more criminals behind bars and tackle crime in their communities."