London man sues Police after being wrongly flagged by facial recognition

A man falsely identified as a suspect by London Police’s live facial recognition has filed a legal action against the Police sweeping away the use of technology.  

The High Court in London began a review procedure examining the British capital’s Metropolitan police and whether they are acting under the law in its use of live facial recognition (LFR) cameras in public places.  

Shaun Thompson, a volunteer who helps young people affected by street crime, was questioned by police in 2023 after being wrongly identified by the technology as on a watchlist.

The Met uses the technology to scan the faces of passers-by and compare their biometrics with thousands on a watchlist. The UK is the only European country to deploy the technology on a large scale.

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Thompson launched a legal action against Silkie Carlo, director of civil liberties campaigning organisation Big Brother Watch.

Their lawyer, Dan Squires, told the court police can use the technology in more than half of public areas of London without clear enough reasons for the selected locations.

The police’s lawyer, Anya Proops, argued the case was “entirely lacking in merit” and could have “very dramatic implications” if it limited use of the technology to locations connected with people being sought.

The judicial review meeting is due to finish on Wednesday, with a judgement on a later date.  

Two judges are tasked with assessing whether the Met’s policy on using facial recognition technology provides adequate constraints or is arbitrary.

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The police force said in its written argument that last year 801 arrests were made as a result of LFR.

“The primary value of live facial recognition for the police is it is an immensely effective and powerful tool enabling us to locate people when we don’t know where they are,” Proops said.

The issue is “the mass scale of the innocent people whose biometric data is taken”, Squires added.

The Metropolitan Police said the technology only “minimally” intrudes into the privacy of the public because it is required to be clearly signposted.