The UK’s first permanent facial recognition cameras are set to hit south London’s high streets.
The cameras will scan for wanted criminals walking by in Croydon as part of a project by the Metropolitan Police that could extend across the capital.
They will capture the faces of people on the street in order to catch alleged rapists, burglars, robbers and other criminals by matching them with the images they have in their database.
The cameras will alert officers if there is a match and are set to begin recording in June or July, according to the Times.
The data is immediately deleted if there is no match.
It also does not exhibit the same racial bias as found in other forms of facial recognition, the Met has previously claimed.
It’s a step forward for the force who have for the past two years deployed live facial recognition (LFR) cameras to its vans which has resulted in thousands of arrests -including at least two rapists in the last year.
The new cameras will be positioned on existing lampposts or attached to buildings and will only operate when officers are nearby and ready to respond to database matches.
The UK’s first permanent facial recognition cameras are set to hit south London’s high streets
They will capture the faces of people on the street in order to catch wanted rapists, burglars, robbers and other criminals by matching them with the images they have in their database
It’s a step forward for the force who have for the past two years deployed live facial recognition (LFR) cameras to its vans which has resulted in thousands of arrests – including at least two rapists in the last year
The cameras will be located at North End and London Road.
Mitch Carr, the Met’s neighbourhood policing superintendent for south London, wrote to local community figures earlier this month announcing the move.
He said: ‘I am currently working with the central team to install fixed LFR cameras in Croydon town centre. This will mean our use of LFR technology will be far more embedded as a ‘business as usual’ approach rather than relying on the availability of the LFR vans that are in high demand across London.
‘It will remain the case that the cameras are only switched on when officers are deployed on the ground ready to respond to alerts.
‘The end result will see cameras covering a defined area and will give us much more flexibility around the days and times we can run the operations.’
However, the move has been met with hostility by privacy campaigners who described it as a ‘steady slide into a dystopian nightmare’.
Rebecca Vincent, interim director of the privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: ‘We are alarmed by reports that Croydon police are installing an unprecedented permanent network of fixed live facial recognition cameras across Croydon town centre, which marks a worrying escalation in the use of LFR with no oversight or legislative basis.
‘It’s time to stop this steady slide into a dystopian nightmare and halt all use of LFR technology across the UK until legislative safeguards are introduced.’
However, the move has been met with hostility by privacy campaigners who described it as a ‘steady slide into a dystopian nightmare’
But Chris Philp, the Conservative MP for Croydon South and shadow home secretary, hit back at anti-LFR campaigners: ‘Using fixed cameras is the logical next step in the roll-out of this technology, which will ensure even more wanted criminals get caught.
‘This technology will mean wanted criminals are unable to wander round town and city centres without getting caught.
‘Those few people opposing this technology need to explain why they don’t want those wanted criminals to be arrested.
‘There are no legitimate privacy concerns given that the images of those people not on the wanted list are immediately and automatically deleted.
‘This technology has the potential to revolutionise crime fighting in the same way that fingerprints and DNA have in the past.’
