Thames Valley Police insists live facial recognition cameras are 'fair' amid privacy fears

Thames Valley Police has insisted its rollout of facial recognition cameras is ‘responsible, proportionate and fair’ amid privacy concerns.

The force has greenlit Thames Valley-wide use of live facial recognition cameras – advanced systems built into police vans and used to scan crowds for the faces of criminals.

Backed by the Home Office and already used by several UK policing authorities, Thames Valley Police said the technology is ‘a tool to assist officers’ and that protections are in place to preserve people’s privacy.

But civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch worries the technology threatens to create a state of ‘mass surveillance’.

Thames Valley Police unveiled two new live facial recognition (LFR) vans when its use of the advanced scanning equipment was launched in Oxford on Monday, December 22.

LFR technology will be used across the Thames Valley to locate wanted criminals and suspects in investigations, as well as missing persons, the force said.

Officers trained to use the cameras would create a ‘bespoke watchlist’ using images of people they ‘would like to speak to’ in connection with ongoing investigations.

A statement added: “If an individual is not on the watchlist, then their face cannot be matched.”

Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Matthew Barber, the elected representative overseeing policing in Berkshire, supported the force’s use of LFR cameras.

“The only people who should have anything to fear from the use of live facial recognition are criminals,” he said.

The Thames Valley Police website said privacy protections included system alerts only being triggered by faces on the ‘watchlist’, and that any other images collected were ‘automatically and immediately deleted’.

However, concerns over data security and intrusions into people’s privacy as a result of LFR camera use have been raised by a nationwide activist group.

Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch – a group named in reference to George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 – said the technology’s use ‘treats us all like criminals’.

“Live facial recognition cameras are an assault on privacy in Berkshire,” Ms Carlo said.

“This smacks of an authoritarian surveillance state that would make Orwell roll in his grave.

“We all want our streets to be safer, but officers on the beat and functioning courts are more likely to reduce crime than cameras that scan millions of innocent people’s faces in passport-style checks.

“This is a flawed mass surveillance tool that treats us all like criminals.”

In response to Ms Carlo’s comments, a Thames Valley Police spokesperson said its use of facial recognition technology was ‘designed to be lawful, responsible, proportionate and fair’.

“We recognise that there is an ongoing need to balance privacy and protection concerns while using this technology, and we aim to be as transparent as possible,” the spokesperson said.

They added: “This technology is being used as a tool to assist officers, not replace them. The vans are operated by police officers on the ground, and all engagement is carried out on our streets by officers alongside the technology.”