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Court finds some fault with UK police forces use of facial recognition tech

Civil rights campaigners in the UK have won a legal challenge to South Wales Polices use of facial recognition technology.

The win on appeal is being hailed as a world-first victory in the fight against the use of an oppressive surveillance tool, as human rights group Liberty puts it.

However the police force does not intend to appeal the ruling and has said it remains committed to careful use of the tech.

The force has used the technology in conjunction with watchlists of between 400-800 people which included persons wanted on warrants; persons who had escaped from custody; persons suspected of having committed crimes; persons who may be in need of protection; vulnerable persons; persons of possible interest to it for intelligence purposes; and persons whose presence at a particular event causes particular concern, per a press summary issued by the appeals court.

A challenge was brought to SWPs use of AFR by a Cardiff-based civil liberties campaigner, called Edward Bridges, with support from Liberty .

The human rights implications of warrantless processing of sensitive personal data by the police is the core issue in the case.

The court judged that the legal framework and policies used by SWP did not provide clear guidance on where AFR Locate could be used and who could be put on a watchlist finding too broad a discretion was afforded to police officers to meet the standard required by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The court also judged the force wrong to hold that it had complied with the PSED because it had not taken reasonable steps to make enquiries about whether the AFR Locate software contained bias on racial or sex grounds.

Since Bridges brought the challenge Londons Met police has gone ahead and switched on operational use of facial recognition technology flipping the switch at the start of this year.

Given bias problems that have been identified with such systems that may prove the bigger blocker to continued police use of this flavor of AI.

Original article
Author: Natasha Lomas

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