South Wales Police restarts facial recognition tech usage – although critics reiterate privacy concerns

The report follows a previous Court of Appeal judgment which highlighted areas which needed to be explored and resolved, including the force’s equality duty.

South Wales Police say that this work has been completed and the results of independent evaluation shows that there is no risk of the technology causing a breach of equality requirements through bias or discrimination.

Critics however, have reiterated their stance that the technology is an infringement on people’s privacy, especially given that legislation to govern its use is not currently sufficiently developed.

South Wales Police Chief Constable Jeremy Vaughan, who is also the national policing lead on biometrics, said: “My priority will always be to protect the public while relentlessly pursuing those people determined to cause harm in our communities. It is important to use new technology to help us achieve that.

“It is right and proper that our use of technology is subject to legal challenge and scrutiny and the work that has been carried out to scrutinise and test this ground-breaking technology gives me confidence that we are meeting our equality obligations.

“The study confirms that the way South Wales Police uses the technology does not discriminate on the grounds of gender, age or race and this reinforces my long-standing belief that the use of facial recognition technology is a force for good and will help us keep the public safe and assist us in identifying serious offenders in order to protect our communities from individuals who pose significant risks.

“I believe the public will continue to support our use of all the available methods and technology to keep them safe and thanks to the work of the National Physical Laboratory and the results of its independent evaluation I believe we are now in a stronger position than ever before to be able to demonstrate that the use of facial recognition technology is fair, legitimate, ethical and proportionate.”

South Wales Police say that prior to the Court of Appeal challenge, live-time deployments of facial recognition in the force area resulted in 61 people being arrested for offences including robbery violence, theft and failure to respond to court warrants.

The deployments took place at events ranging from major sporting and public events in Cardiff and Swansea to supporting operations to tackle local criminality.

Mr Vaughan added: “There was nothing in the Court of Appeal judgment that fundamentally undermined the use of facial recognition to protect the public and I am pleased that the work that has been carried out has given us confidence in meeting our public sector equality impact obligations and strengthened the operational policies and guidance we have in place to withstand the most robust legal challenge and public scrutiny.”

The Welsh Liberal Democrats passed a motion at their Autumn Party Conference calling on Welsh police forces to resist rolling out the technology citing concerns over human rights, ingrained bias and data protection.

The party has argued that while the technology poses a number of significant risks, its benefits are minimal with no direct link between the use of facial recognition technology and lower crime rates. 

Commenting Leena Farhat, who proposed the Welsh Liberal Democrat policy at their conference stated: “While it is welcome that South Wales Police have listened to some concerns regarding ingrained bias in this technology, its use still makes myself and many others deeply uncomfortable.

“This technology is only as reliable as the people who programme it and we know from trials in London there is a particularly high error rate for people of black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds, as well as for children and women. 

“There are strict rules on indiscriminately taking and cross-referencing our fingerprints and DNA but legislation has not caught up to apply to the use of live facial recognition technology.

“We all want to see crime tackled, but Wales should not become a society where innocent people feel as though their every movement is being watched by the police.”