Liberty responds to reports that police knew of facial recognition bias

Liberty Investigates reveals National Police Chiefs’ Council documents showing the police knew about bias in the Police National Database facial recognition system for over a year but ignored it after forces complained about missing potential matches.

In response, Charlie Whelton, Liberty policy and campaigns officer, said:

“The statistics showing clear racial bias in facial recognition technology were concerning enough. But the revelation that police continued to roll out a system they knew was biased against women, young people, and people from racially marginalised groups is deeply troubling.

Evidence is mounting as to why it is crucial we have robust safeguards in place before this powerful and intrusive technology is expanded any further. For too long, police forces have set the terms, and we are now seeing the real-life consequences.

With thousands of searches a month using this discriminatory algorithm, there are now serious questions to be answered over how many people have been wrongly identified, or what impact this may have had on their lives.

The Government must immediately stop the rollout of facial recognition technology until we have safeguards in place to protect each of us, including real transparency, and meaningful oversight – something we know the public wants.”