London’s Met Police To Test Facial Recognition Technology

It’s not surprising to hear about facial recognition technology being used to identify and track people that may be wanted by the law. A recent report claimed that the technology was even used at a Taylor Swift concert to track her stalkers. London’s Met Police is also trying out facial recognition technology for a limited time to search for people wanted by the law.

London’s Metropolitan Police will be running a trial of facial recognition technology this week to detect people that are wanted by the police and the courts. The technology will be set up in three busy areas of London – Soho, Piccadilly Circus, and Leicester Square.

It will scan the faces in crowds and run them against a database of people that are wanted by the courts and the Met Police. If the system detects a match, an alert is sent to officers who can then review the match on the ground and perform further checks to confirm the person’s identity.

The facial scanners will be deployed for close to eight hours per day and will be positioned quite visibly with uniformed police presence. People walking by the scanners can move out of its way if they don’t want to be scanned and the police say that all footage recorded during the trial will be deleted immediately after it concludes. Faces that match the watchlist will be kept for 30 days, however.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: General
Tags: facial recognition, london