London Underground Trials Live Face Scanning

The British Transport Police is expanding a trial of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology across several London Underground stations from today. The trial will start at Victoria and then rotate around other stations until November.

The cameras work by comparing scanned faces to a watchlist of suspects and criminals wanted by the police. If there's a match, it's reviewed by a police officer — if not, the image is 'immediately and permanently' deleted.

The British Transport Police are looking out for people wanted in connection with serious offences, including sexual assault, robbery, and knife crime. The technology has already been used to scan some 530,000 faces across UK railway stations since February, resulting in zero matches, zero arrests, and one false identification.

The Metropolitan police are also planning to use live facial recognition (LFR) technology on Britain’s busiest shopping street, Oxford Street. This would make it among the first areas in the country to have permanent LFR infrastructure scanning the faces of people passing and comparing them with a watchlist of wanted suspects.

## Why it matters The use of live facial recognition technology in public spaces has raised concerns among privacy groups, with 48% of people opposed to scanning the faces of those walking on high streets when there is no suspected imminent threat, according to recent polling commissioned by Liberty. The British Transport Police's official statement says that their deployments are intelligence-led and focused on identifying people wanted by the police or courts.

The expansion of live facial recognition technology into the London Underground and other public spaces is likely to continue the debate over public surveillance and privacy. As the technology becomes more widespread, it remains to be seen how it will be received by the public and whether it will be effective in reducing crime