Liberty: Children on facial recognition watchlists shows need for safeguards

• New evidence reveals hundreds of children included on police facial recognition watchlists
• Liberty calls on Government to halt rollout until laws in place as consultation set to begin this week
• Liberty facial recognition experts and lawyers available for interview 

Liberty has called on the Government to halt the rollout of facial recognition and introduce safeguards after revelations that children have been included on police watchlists.

Reporting by Liberty Investigates found that hundreds of children have been included in watchlists by police forces across the country – with children as young as 12 targeted by the tech.

Liberty Investigates also found police forces had interpreted current guidance on including children on watchlists differently – while forces did not keep records to explain why children had been included in the first place.

Liberty, the human rights organisation which won the first legal challenge against police use of facial recognition, said the findings demonstrated why the Government must introduce robust laws and safeguards to protect the rights of the British public.

The Government and police have been pressing ahead with a rapid expansion of facial recognition despite the fact there are no laws in place to regulate police use.

Last week British Transport Police announced it would trial facial recognition at railway stations in London. In recent months forces in Manchester, Bedfordshire and Yorkshire also began using the tech. In October the first permanent fixed cameras went live in Croydon.

A Government consultation into police use of facial recognition is set to launch imminently.

Liberty has been calling on the Government to follow the example of other countries which have introduced laws around police use of facial recognition technology – and has urged Ministers and police forces to stop expanding use until those laws are in place.

Safeguards Liberty wants include: 

• Independent sign off before facial recognition is used
• Police to only be able to use facial recognition technology to:
• Search for missing persons or victims of abduction, human trafficking and sexual exploitation
• Prevent an imminent threat to life or people’s safety
• Search for people suspected of committing a serious criminal offence
• Watchlists to only contain images strictly relevant to the purposes above
• Police to give the public at least 14-days advance warning of live facial recognition deployments

Akiko Hart, Liberty director, said: 

“The fact children are being swept up in police facial recognition watchlists is extremely worrying, and further evidence of why robust safeguards around how this technology is used needs to come first.

“Instead of the Government putting clear and consistent rules in place around how police are using facial recognition to ensure the rights of the public are protected, the forces have been left to choose for themselves. The result is what we are seeing here, with police across the country taking very different approaches to including children on watchlists which carry serious risks for their rights and safety.

“The Government must halt the rapidly increasing roll out of facial technology, follow the example of other countries, and put laws and robust safeguards in place to prioritise and protect the rights of the British public.”