British Transport Police (BTP) has announced the rollout of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology at London Bridge railway station as part of six-month trial, writes Frankie Hills…
The technology was installed and went live on Wednesday 11th February.
London Bridge is the first station to go live with the controversial technology, recording millions of faces in one of the UK’s busiest transport hubs.
Over 54 million passengers used London Bridge last year and the BTP say they will give dates and locations for other stations taking part in the LFR pilot in the coming weeks, publishing them online before activating the cameras.
The police are encouraging people using the station during the trial to give them feedback with a QR code on posters and have said passengers who don’t want to be scanned by the cameras will be given an alternative route to avoid them.
The use of the camera has drawn much criticism from privacy and civil liberties campaigners, most notably from a group called Big Brother Watch.
The group, alongside 39-year-old Shaun Thompson, have gone to the High Court to challenge the Met Police’s use of LFR, after Shaun was mistakenly identified when passing a camera van two years ago in London Bridge.
He described how he had been returning home from a shift in Croydon with the community group Street Fathers, which aims to protect young people from knife crime. As he passed a white van, he said police approached him and told him he was a wanted man.
Describing LDR as as “stop and search on steroids” he said officers had asked him for his fingerprints, but he refused, and he was let go only after about 30 minutes, having shown them a photo of his passport.
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Lawyers representing the director of Big Brother Watch, Silkie Carlo, and Shaun Thompson told a High Court hearing last month that the police’s use of LFR was increasing ‘exponentially.’
The Met Police used facial recognition 231 times and scanned around 4 million faces last year, Dan Squires KC said during the judicial review at High Court.
There are plans to extend the cameras’ use, although consultation on it is still underway and in Croydon over 100 wanted criminals were arrested in the first months of a pilot where camera were mounted onto street furniture on the high street.
The Met said there was just one false alert during that pilot.
In Elephant and Castle the use of LFR at Sainsbury’s supermarket has made the headlines when earlier this month, Warren Rajah, 42, was mistakenly identified as a criminal at their New Kent Road store and removed from the premises.
Whilst the supermarket chain later apologised for the incident it has fuelled debate as to the effectiveness and potential intrusiveness of LFR.
Big Brother Watch’s Matthew Feeney said of the new pilot scheme in London Bridge: “We all want train passengers to travel safely, but subjecting law-abiding passengers to mass biometric surveillance is a disproportionate and disturbing response.
“Facial recognition technology remains unregulated in the UK and police forces, including British Transport Police, are writing their own facial recognition rules, including those governing how they use the technology and who they place on watchlists.
“It is especially concerning that British Transport Police are moving ahead with facial recognition deployments before the Home Office has finished its consultation on a legal framework for police use of facial recognition technology.
“The use of this technology is especially offensive in a democracy where neither the public nor Parliament has ever voted on its use.
“Sadly, the UK stands out among democracies when it comes to the widespread use of live facial recognition. The Government must take immediate steps to rein in police use of this technology.”
Chief Superintendent Chris Casey, the BTP’s senior officer overseeing the project at London Bridge, said: “[We] want to reiterate that this is a trial of the technology to assess how it performs in a railway setting. The initiative follows a significant amount of research and planning, and forms part of BTP’s commitment to using innovative technology to make the railways a hostile place for individuals wanted for serious criminal offences, helping us keep the public safe.
“People who prefer not to enter the recognition zone will have alternative routes available and images of anyone not on the authorised database will be deleted immediately and permanently.
“We want to make the trial as effective as it can be and we welcome your feedback. You can scan the QR codes on the posters and tell us your thoughts.”
Representing the Met at the High Court Anya Proops KC said officers were searching for “literally thousands” of wanted individuals in London.
She said locating them was “akin to looking for stray needles in an enormous, exceptionally dense haystack” and argued that LFR enabled police to identify people who would otherwise go undetected.
She said officers made 801 arrests last year “specifically as a result of LFR” insisting that intrusion on the public’s privacy was “only minimal”. Data from people not on a watchlist was deleted “a fraction of a second” after creation, she added.
A High Court judgement by Lord Justice Holgate and Mrs Justice Farbey will be handed down at a later date.
Further information on the London Bridge pilot is available on the BTP’s website.
