Greater Manchester Police has initiated the use of Live Facial Recognition technology, employing two vans provided by the Home Office to identify individuals on watchlists in crowded areas and during significant public events.
The Greater Manchester Police or GMP [1] announced that new technology will be utilized to combat crime, locate wanted individuals, and protect vulnerable populations. The live facial recognition or LFR vans are scheduled for [2] their inaugural deployment in Sale town centre on October 21 and 23. These vehicles will direct cameras towards specific areas or groups of people. Using specialized software, the system will create a biometric map of each detected face and compare it against a pre-defined watchlist of individuals of interest.
Inspector Jon Middleton [3] who oversees facial recognition technology being deployed by the GMP said, “We deploy the LFR vans in areas where there is a policing reason for example shoplifting or neighbourhood crime.It is important we are out and about speaking to people and engaging with the public, and that is exactly what we have been doing in Sale. People have generally been happy to see us and speak to us, and supportive of the way the technology is being used.We will gradually build up the number and frequency of the deployments, and in the coming weeks will be in Bolton, Wigan and Manchester city centre.Should the system identify a potential match, an alert will be sent to a team of officers on the ground for verification and further action. GMP has stated that any biometric data not resulting in a match will be automatically and immediately deleted.”
The timing of the deployment is significant. In May, [4] the Information Commissioner's Office or ICO issued a formal reprimand to Greater Manchester Police for “serious shortcomings in how they handle CCTV footage” after the force lost two hours of video involving a detainee that could not be recovered. An ICO investigation revealed a lack of clear policies and confusion among staff regarding their responsibilities in data handling. This incident raised substantial concerns about the force's capability to manage sensitive data, a worry that is heightened by the recent introduction of a system designed to process large volumes of sensitive biometric data in real time. Although GMP has implemented clearer retention policies since the incident, the recent failure undermines its assurances regarding responsible management of Automated Facial Recognition data.
Sally Anne Poole the [5] Head of Investigations at the Information Commissioner’s Office said, “CCTV footage, particularly of a person at their most vulnerable, can contain highly sensitive personal data and must be properly protected. It is vital that authorities like police forces have the strictest measures in place to protect personal data to maintain public trust. It is clear in this case that Greater Manchester Police failed its obligation to keep the complainant’s personal data safe and demonstrated serious shortcomings in how it handles CCTV footage. Data protection is not an afterthought; it is a core responsibility. In this case, we see the potential consequences when this responsibility is not properly adhered to. Police forces and public bodies across the country can learn from failures like this and ensure they have the right systems and oversight in place to prevent these mistakes from happening again. Public trust depends on it.”
Critics have also expressed [6] concerns that the technology could lead to increased surveillance without public consent. Rebecca Vincent, Interim Director of Big Brother Watch, stated, “Live facial recognition turns every passer by into a walking barcode and treats us all as a nation of suspects. This move is not only worrying for our privacy rights, it is worrying for our democracy. The Home Office must scrap its plans to roll out further live facial recognition capacity until robust legislative safeguards are established.”