Live Facial Recognition Scanned 406,001 Hampshire Faces: Still No UK Law
Police in Hampshire used live facial recognition technology to scan more than 406,000 faces, according to newly reported figures. The UK still has no specific legislation governing how or when law enforcement can deploy the technology.
Why this matters: Over 400,000 people had their faces scanned by police in one county alone. Most of them had no idea it was happening and no say in it. That is not a pilot program. That is mass biometric surveillance running in a legal vacuum. The UK has data protection rules, but no law that directly controls live facial recognition by police. Without that, there is no clear limit on where cameras go, how long data is kept, or what errors mean for the people wrongly flagged. The technology is already deployed. The rules are not.
Who should care: Privacy officers · Cybersecurity · General readers · Policy
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