Police are being encouraged to double their use of retrospective facial recognition software to track down offenders over the next six months.
The Conservative minister’s urging for greater use of the technology is likely to be met with concern by some parliamentarians. The live form of the technology captures footage of crowds and compares it with a watch list of wanted suspects, alerting officers when there is a potential match. The department says AI surveillance methods such as facial recognition can help police accurately identify those wanted for serious crimes, as well assist in finding missing people.
If the system does not make a match against a watch list, a person’s data is deleted immediately and automatically.It pointed out that live facial recognition technology has already been used successfully, including at last month’s Arsenal v Tottenham north London derby at the Emirates Stadium when police caught three wanted suspects, including one for sexual offences.