Liberty responds to wrongful arrest of innocent man after facial recognition misidentification

Responding to Liberty Investigates story on wrongful arrest of Alvi Choudhury after facial recognition misidentification, Akiko Hart, Liberty director, said:

“Alvi’s story shows the real life harm created by the Government and police continuing to ramp up use of facial recognition before there are safeguards in place to protect the public.

“Every day evidence mounts as to why it is crucial we have robust safeguards in place to protect people’s rights, with independent oversight so rules can be properly enforced. We know police lobbied to continue using facial recognition systems they knew to be biased – they cannot be left to mark their own homework on this.

“There are also serious questions to be answered over how many people have been wrongly identified due to discriminatory algorithms, 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.”