Met to expand use of live facial recognition into central London by Christmas

The Metropolitan police will deploy fixed live facial recognition cameras in London’s West End and Soho by Christmas, expanding a technology that scanned 470,000 faces during a Croydon pilot and led to 173 arrests [1]. The new static cameras will be mounted on street furniture such as lamp-posts and will be relocated as officers identify crime trends, the force said [1]. A further six areas are slated to receive static LFR cameras in 2027, with the Met hoping local councils will help fund the rollout [1]. The expansion follows a six-month trial in Croydon, a south London borough that developed from a small market town into a significant business and cultural hub and is home to East Croydon station, one of the busiest non-terminal stations in the country [7][8]. During that pilot, cameras placed at both ends of Croydon high street scanned 470,000 faces, resulting in 173 arrests and a single false identification in which the person was released without arrest, according to Met figures [1]. Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley called the technology “one of the most revolutionary technology advances in policing in recent years” and cited polling indicating around 80% of Londoners support its use [1]. The force has reduced the sensitivity of its algorithm in an effort to nearly eliminate racial bias, and it insists that any arrest decision following an LFR alert is made by a human officer [1]. Civil liberties groups condemned the move. Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, said expanding LFR to static cameras was “an alarming escalation of an intrusive technology which has already scanned the faces of millions of innocent Londoners” [1]. She added that requiring people to enter what she called “a digital police lineup in the capital’s busiest and most popular destinations is an affront to the idea that you should not have to identify yourself to the police if you have done nothing wrong” [1]. The Met said the cameras’ locations would be advertised in advance and that faces not matching a suspect watchlist are deleted from the system almost instantaneously [1]. The West End and Soho deployment zone covers some of the highest-crime areas in the capital [1].