The Metropolitan Police made seven arrests in Croydon town centre yesterday by using Live Facial Recognition technology.
Warning signs: when the Met has deployed LFR before, they have put these banners up
LFR uses a live camera feed, or feeds, of people’s faces in crowds, and compares the live images against photos on a predetermined watchlist in order to locate “persons of interest”, generating an alert when a possible match is found.
The technology has in the past been mainly used – as far as the Met is telling anyone – at marches and large demos. But this week, the police in Croydon announced that they would be using LFR “at key locations”.
According to Scotland Yard, the technology “can be used in a number of ways by the Met, including to prevent and detect crime, find wanted criminals, safeguard vulnerable people, and to protect people from harm”.
They say, “LFR is not a ubiquitous tool that uses lots of CCTV cameras from across London to track every person’s movements. It is a carefully deployed overt policing tactic to help locate a limited number of people the police need to find in order to keep London safe.”
Note the use of “overt”.
There are a myriad of human rights and privacy considerations which ought to limit the use of Big Brother observation cameras on the public, and which ought to prevent the police using the technology covertly – though doubtless they do, and just keep schtum about it.
When the technology has been deployed previously in London, signs have been placed at the perimeter of the area being surveilled to provide a public warning.
Those privacy rights issues are probably also why, yesterday afternoon, Croydon police tweeted this message: “We’ll be using Live Facial Recognition technology at key locations in Croydon on Thursday 7 December.
“This technology helps keep Londoners safe [and] will be used to find people who threaten or cause harm, those who are wanted, or have outstanding arrest warrants issued by the court.”
This morning, there was a follow-up message: “Seven men were arrested following our deployment of Live Facial Recognition in Croydon yesterday.
“The men, aged between 19 and 49, were arrested for offences including rape, robbery, GBH, fraud, burglary and the supply of control drugs.
“All remain in custody.”
The police have issued no further messaging about if, or when, they will be repeating the exercise.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
- Inside Croydon – as seen on TV! – has been delivering local community news since 2010. 3million page views per year in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
- If you want real journalism, actually based in the borough, you should consider paying for it. Please sign up today. Click here for more details
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content
- Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as BBC London News and ITV London
