Live Facial Recognition (LFR) surveillance is on trial at Transport for London (TfL) Underground stations by British Transport Police (BTP). Police reported the first deployment in a TfL station was at Victoria Underground station on Tuesday, August 11, and will then rotate between use at Underground (such as King’s Cross St Pancras, pictured, on August 20) and Network Rail stations. The trial has been extended to November.
Chief Supt Chris Casey is BTP’s senior officer responsible for the project. He said: “This marks an important new stage in our trial of Live Facial Recognition technology. Expanding deployments into London Underground stations will help us assess the technology in a different transport environment while continuing to refine how it is used across the railway network.
“Our deployments are intelligence-led and focused on identifying people wanted by the police or courts, including those suspected of serious offences and those who may be breaching bail conditions or court orders. Our focus remains on protecting the public, preventing crime and bringing offenders to justice, while ensuring the technology is used lawfully, proportionately and transparently.”
And Siwan Hayward, Director of Security, Policing and Enforcement at Transport for London, said: “Live facial recognition has the potential to be a powerful additional tool in helping police quickly identify those wanted for high-harm offences, including sexual offences, and supports early intervention and helps stop incidents before they happen. This trial is an important step in understanding how this technology can be used on the London Underground in a targeted, proportionate way with strict safeguards in place. We will be monitoring and assessing the impact of LFR through this trial over the next four months.”
According to a BTP data protection impact assessment (DPIA), CCTV footage generated from LFR deployments is deleted within 31 days.
In June meanwhile Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley proposed LFR cameras across the West End and Soho by the end of the year; typically by a van with cameras and associated equipment; after a trial in Croydon.
Comment
At the civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, Director Silkie Carlo called it a disturbing and dystopian expansion of live facial recognition. She said: “Far from reserving this for exceptional cases, British police are now using live facial recognition routinely in the sort of pervasive way you might expect in China but not in a democracy. This is error-ridden, AI surveillance technology that treats the public like suspects and turns us into walking ID cards.
“In British Transport Police’s trials this year, they achieved a 100 per cent fail rate, checking over half a million commuters’ faces only to trigger one alert which was a misidentification. British Transport Police should get back to proper policing and stop using AI surveillance tech that belongs in dystopian fiction.”
