London Bridge rail station, pictured, was the setting for the first British Transport Police (BTP) trial of Live Facial Recognition (LFR), as announced by the force in November. It’s part of a six-month pilot, using the product firm’s NEC’s NeoFace M40 algorithm facial recognition.
Chief Supt Chris Casey is BTP’s senior officer overseeing the project. He said: “The project team have spent a significant amount of time working closely with partners including Network Rail, the Department for Transport and the Rail Delivery Group to get us to this stage.
“I want to reiterate that this is a trial of the technology to assess how it performs in a railway setting. The initiative follows a significant amount of research and planning, and forms part of BTP’s commitment to using innovative technology to make the railways a hostile place for individuals wanted for serious criminal offences, helping us keep the public safe.
“The cameras work by scanning faces and comparing them to a watchlist of offenders wanted for serious offences. If there’s a match, then the system generates an alert. An officer will review it and carry out further checks to determine if the person is a suspect and if they need to take further action.
“People who prefer not to enter the recognition zone will have alternative routes available and images of anyone not on the authorised database will be deleted immediately and permanently.”
For more details, visit the BTP website.
Comment
For the civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, Advocacy Manager Matthew Feeney said: “We all want train passengers to travel safely, but subjecting law-abiding passengers to mass biometric surveillance is a disproportionate and disturbing response. Facial recognition technology remains unregulated in the UK, and police forces, including British Transport Police, are writing their own facial recognition rules, including those governing how they use the technology and who they place on watchlists.
“It is especially concerning that British Transport Police are moving ahead with facial recognition deployments before the Home Office has finished its consultation on a legal framework for police use of facial recognition technology. The use of this technology is especially offensive in a democracy where neither the public nor Parliament has ever voted on its use. Sadly, the UK stands out among democracies when it comes to the widespread use of live facial recognition. The Government must take immediate steps to rein in police use of this technology.”
Police Reform
Meanwhile in the white paper, ‘From local to national: a new model for policing’, published last month, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood in a foreword hailed that some forces are ‘already adopting new technology to great effect, such as Live Facial Recognition. But others lag behind, using analogue methods to fight crime in this digital age’. The document promised that the UL Government will ‘equip the police with the data and technology they need to keep pace with criminality and provide the best possible service to the public’, and introduce a National Centre for AI in Policing. Also promised is Home Office funding of 40 new Live Facial Recognition (LFR) vans, ‘as part of a nationally coordinated LFR capability, to intercept violent and sexual offenders in high crime areas across the country. In all cases, we will give the police the resources and expertise to deploy AI in an ethical, robust and responsible way, supported by a new regulatory framework with strong oversight and accountability’.
Photo by Mark Rowe, 2020.
