in 2024, the police arrested more than 500 people using facial recognition

More than 500 people have been arrested during the year 2024 in the United Kingdom using controversial real-time facial recognition technology, London police announced on Friday. In total, 540 people suspected of rape, assault, domestic violence, harassment or shoplifting were arrested, and 406 of them have since been charged or received a warning from the courts, according to the press release from the «Met» police. London police say they are “pioneer in the use of this technology” here he is “enables a more precise, intelligence-led approach to fighting crime”.

She uses it in certain areas of London such as Croydon (south), with a van equipped with cameras. These capture real-time images of passers-by, whose faces are compared with those of suspects placed on a watch list. If one of them passes near the van, the system triggers an alert signal, which allows the police to arrest them, after checks. “This is a powerful tool that helps officers identify and focus on those individuals who are at highest risk and who would otherwise have gone undetected”underlines Lindsey Chiswick, Met Police performance manager.

“Dangerously authoritarian surveillance”

The growing deployment in the United Kingdom of this live facial recognition technology has raised concerns and accusations of abuse from NGOs and elected officials of all sides. The Big Brother Watch organization is leading a campaign to denounce “dangerously authoritarian surveillance, which poses a threat to our privacy and freedoms”and creates a “dangerous precedent on a global scale”. These concerns are “understandable”but “robust guarantees” were put in place to avoid abuse, assures the police.

“If a person passes a camera and is not on a police watch list, their biometric data is immediately and permanently deleted”she said. In the European Union, legislation governing artificial intelligence (AI) prohibits the use of real-time facial recognition technologies but exemptions are provided for law enforcement in the fight against terrorism or for investigate a serious crime.