U.K. rolls out mobile facial recognition vans

• The U.K. government has launched 10 mobile facial recognition (LFR) vans across seven police forces in England to identify suspects in serious crimes like rape, murder and terrorism.
• LFR cameras scan passersby in real time and compare biometric facial data to police watchlists; potential matches are reviewed by trained officers before any action is taken.
• Officials claim the technology enhances public safety and is used in a targeted, intelligence-led and proportionate manner, with no data stored for individuals not on watchlists.
• Civil liberties group Big Brother Watch has filed a legal challenge against the Met Police, citing the lack of a legal framework and the wrongful identification of Shaun Thompson.
• Critics, including Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, warn the use of LFR is intrusive, potentially unlawful and risks creating a “total surveillance society” without proper oversight or safeguards.

Britain’s quiet romance with surveillance just got a flashy new upgrade: mobile facial recognition vans.

These high-tech vans, equipped with live facial recognition (LFR) cameras, are now patrolling the streets of Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley and Hampshire to scan faces in real time and match them against police watchlists.

Home Office, which officially dispatched the national fleet of ten roving biometric units across seven police forces in England on Aug. 15, seeks to catch suspects involved in serious crimes like rape, murder and terrorism. Each LFR van is staffed with a trained police officer and uses cameras to scan the faces of passersby in real time. These images are then compared against a police-generated watchlist of individuals wanted for serious crimes. The software works by taking biometric measurements, such as the distance between a person’s eyes and the shape of their jawline, and matching them to existing facial data.

If a possible match is flagged, it is reviewed by a human officer before any action is taken.

“The increased access to Live Facial Recognition vehicles to forces that previously did not have the capability is an excellent opportunity for policing. Each Live Facial Recognition deployment will be targeted, intelligence-led, within a set geographical location and for a defined period of time, ensuring deployments are proportionate, lawful and necessary.

“Live Facial Recognition has already been used in policing to great success, locating thousands of wanted offenders or others breaching their bail conditions. I am confident that the increased use of this technology will continue to support the safety of communities across the country moving forward,” said Lindsey Chiswick, the head of LFR at the National Police Chief’s Council.

Officials vow that innocent citizens have nothing to worry about, insisting that if a person is not on the watchlist, their biometric data is not stored.

Big Brother Watch launches legal challenge over “lawless” use of facial recognition

Critics, however, aren’t convinced.

Civil liberties group Big Brother Watch has launched a legal challenge against the Metropolitan Police’s use of LFR technology, claiming the force is deploying the controversial surveillance tool without a clear legal basis and in violation of fundamental rights. The challenge is being brought alongside Shaun Thompson, a man who was wrongly identified by an LFR camera.

“Police have interpreted the absence of any legislative basis authorizing the use of this intrusive technology as carte blanche to continue to roll it out unfettered, despite the fact that a crucial judicial review on the matter is pending. The Home Office must scrap its plans to roll out further live facial recognition capacity until robust legislative safeguards are established,” Rebecca Vincent, the interim director of Big Brother Watch, said. (Related: U.K.’s Crime and Policing Bill 2025 reignites facial recognition controversy.)

They argue that the technology is prone to misidentification, disproportionately affects marginalized groups and opens the door to creeping surveillance normalization.

Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, Labour peer and former director of Liberty, echoed those concerns, warning that the technology is “incredibly intrusive” and that “some would say this is yet another move towards a total surveillance society.” The former Liberty director voiced concerns about its impact on privacy, freedom of assembly and the risk of misidentifying innocent people.

Chakrabarti criticized the current use of facial recognition, saying it has so far been deployed “completely outside the law,” with police “making up their own rules and marking their own homework.”

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Watch the video below that talks about the United Kingdom’s digital ID rollout.

This video is from the Your News Now (YNN) channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Irish government to legalize retrospective facial recognition technology.

London’s facial recognition milestone sparks surveillance vs. privacy debate.

Russia to launch nationwide facial recognition payment system this year.

Malfunctioning facial recognition technology may put innocent individuals at risk.

Mastercard rolls out payment system that uses FACIAL RECOGNITION technology.

Sources include:

Infowars.com

BBC.com

Brighteon.com