Large-scale facial recognition: UK has scanned nearly 5 million faces

The aim, according to the police, is to "identify and intercept" wanted persons live, by scanning faces and comparing them with thousands of suspects in its database.

"Real-time facial recognition is an effective tool […] that has enabled more than 1,000 arrests since the beginning of 2024," assured Mark Rowley, the London police chief, who plans to "more than double its use" in the future. The use of these technologies has already increased considerably over the past three years, going from ten operations between 2016 and 2019 to around 100 since the beginning of 2025.

In total, the faces of 4.7 million people were scanned in the UK in 2024, notes the NGO Liberty. The cameras are installed on the roof of a van, where police officers operate, and when a suspect passes nearby, the system, which uses artificial intelligence, triggers an alert allowing them to be arrested immediately.

Its "large-scale" use in the British capital, on the occasion of the coronation of Charles III in 2023, or in Cardiff this year before the Oasis concerts and the Six Nations matches, transforms the United Kingdom into "a country of suspects," worries the organization Big Brother Watch. "There is no legislative basis [...] so the police have free rein to write their own rules," says Rebecca Vincent, its interim director.

Its private use by supermarkets and clothing stores to combat the sharp rise in shoplifting is of particular concern to them, with "very little information" on their data collection. Most use Facewatch, a service provider that compiles a list of suspected offenders in the stores it monitors and raises an alert as soon as one of them enters one of these stores.

"They should clearly inform their customers," said Abigail Bevon, a 26-year-old forensic pathologist I met outside a chain using Facewatch in London. While she understands the usefulness of this technology for the police, she considers its use by a business "invasive."

"It changes the way we live in cities by removing the possibility of living anonymously" and can discourage participation, particularly in protests, warns Daragh Murray, a lecturer at Queen Mary University of London. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper recently promised a "legal framework" to limit its use, emphasizing the fight against "serious crime."

In the EU, legislation governing artificial intelligence since February has prohibited the use of real-time facial recognition technologies, with exceptions, notably for counterterrorism. Aside from a few cases in the United States, "there is nothing comparable in European countries or other democracies, with the use of this technology (in the United Kingdom) being more akin to that of authoritarian states like China," Vincent points out.

Without further ado, the Home Office has just extended the use of this procedure to seven new regions of the United Kingdom. Following the vans, permanent cameras are also to be installed for the first time in September in Croydon, a neighborhood in the south of the capital considered difficult. The police assure that they have "robust safeguards," promising to delete the biometric data of people who have nothing to reproach themselves for.