{"id":888144,"date":"2026-01-27T18:12:01","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T00:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/27\/landmark-legal-challenge-against-police-facial-recognition-begins\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T18:12:01","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T00:12:01","slug":"landmark-legal-challenge-against-police-facial-recognition-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/27\/landmark-legal-challenge-against-police-facial-recognition-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"Landmark legal challenge against police facial recognition begins"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A judicial review against the Metropolitan Police\u2019s use of live facial recognition (LFR) will argue the force is unlawfully deploying the technology across London, without effective safeguards or constraints in place to protect people\u2019s human rights from invasive biometric surveillance.<\/p>\n

Brought by anti-knife campaigner Shaun Thompson, who was wrongfully identified by the Met\u2019s system and subject to a prolonged stop as a result, and privacy group Big Brother Watch, the challenge will argue there are no meaningful safeguards in place to effectively limit how the Met uses the technology.<\/p>\n

In particular, it will argue the Met\u2019s policy on where it can be deployed and who it can be used to target<\/a> is so permissive and leaves so much discretion to the force that it cannot be considered \u201cin accordance with law\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason for the \u2018who\u2019 requirement is clear,\u201d wrote Thompson and Big Brother Watch in their skeleton argument for the case. \u201cIt serves to protect against people being selected for a watchlist for reasons that are arbitrary, discriminatory or without sufficient basis. As to the \u2018where\u2019 requirement, the concern is not with the individuals on the watchlist, but the thousands of innocent people who will have their biometric data taken while going about lawful quotidian activities.\u201d<\/p>\n

They added that, as with the \u201cwho\u201d, similarly constraining officers\u2019 discretion as to \u201cwhere\u201d LFR can be used inhibits officers from selecting locations for reasons that are arbitrary, discriminatory, or otherwise have an insufficient basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a safeguard against individual officers selecting areas arbitrarily or improperly targeting areas where people of certain races or religions disproportionately live or consistently targeting deprived communities in London,\u201d they wrote, adding that if there are insufficient constraints on \u201cwhere\u201d LFR can be used, it will be impossible for people to travel across London without their biometric data being captured and processed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny public place risks becoming one in which people\u2019s identities are liable to be checked to see if they are of interest to the police,\u201d they continued. \u201cThat would be to fundamentally transform public spaces and people\u2019s relationship with the police.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

<\/i>Rights breaches<\/h2>\n

Ultimately, Thompson and Big Brother Watch will argue that the Met\u2019s LFR use breaches the rights to privacy, freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly.<\/p>\n

This marks the first legal challenge in Europe brought by someone misidentified by facial recognition technology.<\/p>\n

After Thompson was wrongly flagged by the technology when travelling through London Bridge, officers detained him while they asked for identity documents, repeatedly demanded fingerprint scans, and inspected him for scars and tattoos.<\/p>\n

The police stop continued for over 20 minutes, during which time Thompson was threatened with arrest, despite providing multiple identity documents showing he had been falsely identified.<\/p>\n

Thompson, a 39-year-old Black man, described the police\u2019s use of LFR at the time as \u201cstop and search on steroids\u201d.<\/p>\n

In August 2020, the Court of Appeal previously found that South Wales Police (SWP) had been deploying LFR unlawfully<\/a>, on the grounds there were insufficient constraints on the force\u2019s discretion over where LFR could be used, and who could be placed on a watchlist.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe possibility of being subjected to a digital identity check by police without our consent almost anywhere, at any time, is a serious infringement on our civil liberties that is transforming London,\u201d said Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo ahead of the case being heard.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen used as a mass surveillance tool, live facial recognition reverses the presumption of innocence and destroys any notion of privacy in our capital. This legal challenge is a\u00a0landmark\u00a0step towards protecting the public against intrusive monitoring.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

\n

<\/i>Legal arguments<\/h2>\n

On where police can deploy LFR, the Met\u2019s policy documents state the force can deploy LFR cameras at \u201ccrime hotspots\u201d, including \u201caccess routes\u201d to those hotspots; for \u201cprotective security operations\u201d, meaning at public events or critical national infrastructure; and locations based on officers\u2019 intelligence about \u201cthe likely location [of] \u2026 sought persons\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, according to their skeleton argument, Thompson and Big Brother Watch will say the policy does \u201cnot meaningfully constrain the discretion as to where LFR can be located\u201d.<\/p>\n

It added that while these use cases are intended to circumscribe where the tech can be used, a third-party analysis conducted by Martin Utley \u2013 a professor of operational research at University College London \u2013 suggests that, in practice, \u201cthey confer far too broad a discretion on individual officers, and permit them to deploy LFR anywhere they choose in the significant majority, if not the vast majority, of public spaces in the Metropolitan Police District at any time\u201d.<\/p>\n

The argument also added that while the Met\u2019s LFR policy permits officers to designate areas as \u201ccrime hotspots\u201d based on \u201coperational experience as to future criminality\u201d, this is \u201copaque and entirely subjective\u201d.<\/p>\n

Utley specifically found that an estimated 47% of the Met\u2019s policing district is labelled as a \u201ccrime hotspot\u201d, and that LFR could be deployed on access routes that cover a further 38%, rendering 85% of London open to LFR deployments.<\/p>\n

A separate analysis conducted by the Met found that LFR can be located in around 40% of the Metropolitan Police District, compared with Utley\u2019s 47%.<\/p>\n

Highlighting how SWP\u2019s use of the tech was found unlawful due to the broad discretion conferred to officers in that case, the argument claims that, taken all together, the Met\u2019s deployment use cases mean that \u201cmost of the city is covered\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two ways LFR can be deployed,\u201d it said. \u201cIt can be used in a targeted way. For example, if the police have reasonable grounds to suspect that particular individuals were going to engage in violence at a football game, they could be placed on a watchlist and LFR used to detect their presence in the vicinity.<\/p>\n

\u201cOr LFR can be deployed in a mass and untargeted way, selecting areas where a very large number of people are likely to pass and using a very large watchlist, in the hope that someone on the list will happen to pass by.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was precisely such mass and untargeted use that concerned the CA [Court of Appeal] in Bridges [the case against SWP], which discretion it considered had to be constrained.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike the case against SWP\u2019s LFR use, however, which sought to determine the proportionality of the interferences with a specific person\u2019s individual rights on the two occasions his biometric information was captured by the system, the judicial review seeks to challenge the lawfulness of the technology\u2019s mass use.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the purpose of the IAWL [in accordance with law] requirement it is critical if there is mass use of LFR to repeatedly process the biometric data of millions of people with the capacity to transform public spaces,\u201d it said. \u201cWhen considering what is required in terms of constraints and safeguards to ensure a measure is IAWL, the Court must consider, among other things, the number of people a measure affects, and not a single individual\u2019s rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Met, on the other hand, will argue that the public are \u201cgenerally at liberty to avoid the relevant LFR area\u201d, and that as individuals\u2019 \u201cfamiliarity\u201d with LFR increases, it can be considered less rights-intrusive.<\/p>\n

The force will also argue that, because officers\u2019 discretion around LFR deployments is not unconstrained, the case is not an IAWL issue, asserting that \u201cso long as the Court is satisfied there is not unfettered discretion on the constable deciding where to locate LFR, [there] is not a maintainable legality challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Met added that because \u201cthere are no parts of the Policy that allow unfettered discretion for an officer to add whomever he or she wants to a watchlist or place the LFR camera wherever he or she wishes \u2026 there is no maintainable attack on the Policy as lacking the quality of law\u201d.<\/p>\n

In essence, the Met claims that questions about the breadth of officers\u2019 discretion relate only to the proportionality of its approach, rather than its overall lawfulness.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

\n

<\/i>Lack of primary legislation<\/h2>\n

The landmark legal challenge against LFR is being heard just a matter of weeks after the UK government pledged<\/a> to \u201cramp up\u201d the police use of facial recognition and biometrics.<\/p>\n

While the use of LFR by police \u2013 beginning with the Met\u2019s deployment at Notting Hill Carnival in August 2016 \u2013 has already\u00a0ramped up massively in recent years<\/a>, there has so far been\u00a0minimal public debate<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0consultation<\/a>, with the Home Office claiming for years that there is already \u201ccomprehensive\u201d legal framework in place.<\/p>\n

However, in December 2025,\u00a0the Home Office launched a 10-week consultation on the use of LFR by UK police<\/a>, allowing interested parties and members of the public to share their views on how the\u00a0controversial technology<\/a>\u00a0should be regulated.<\/p>\n

The department has said that although a \u201cpatchwork\u201d legal framework for police facial recognition exists (including for the increasing use of the\u00a0retrospective<\/a>\u00a0and \u201coperator-initiated<\/a>\u201d versions of the technology),\u00a0it does not give police themselves the confidence<\/a>\u00a0to \u201cuse it at significantly greater scale \u2026 nor does it consistently give the public the confidence that it will be used responsibly\u201d.<\/p>\n

It added that the current rules governing police LFR use are \u201ccomplicated and difficult to understand\u201d, and that an ordinary member of the public would be required to read four pieces of legislation, police national guidance documents and a range of detailed legal or data protection documents from individual forces to fully understand the basis for LFR use on their high streets.<\/p>\n

There have also been repeated calls from both Parliament and civil society over many years for the police\u2019s use of facial recognition to be regulated.<\/p>\n

This includes three separate inquiries by the Justice and Home Affairs Committee into\u00a0shoplifting<\/a>,\u00a0police algorithms<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0police facial recognition<\/a>; two of the\u00a0UK\u2019s former biometrics commissioners,\u00a0Paul Wiles<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Fraser Sampson<\/a>; an\u00a0independent legal review<\/a>\u00a0by Matthew Ryder QC; the\u00a0UK\u2019s Equalities and Human Rights Commission<\/a>; and the\u00a0House of Commons Science and Technology Committee<\/a>, which called for a moratorium on live facial recognition as far back as July 2019.<\/p>\n

More recently, the Ada Lovelace Institute\u00a0published a report in May 2025<\/a>\u00a0that said the UK\u2019s patchwork approach to regulating biometric surveillance technologies is \u201cinadequate\u201d, placing fundamental rights at risk and ultimately undermining public trust.<\/p>\n

In August 2025, after being granted permission to intervene in the judicial review of the Met\u2019s LFR use,\u00a0the UK\u2019s equality watchdog said the force is using the technology unlawfully<\/a>, citing the need for its deployments to be necessary, proportionate and respectful of human rights.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Tama Kazmierczak<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A judicial review against the Metropolitan Police\u2019s use of live facial recognition (LFR) will argue the force is unlawfully deploying the technology across London, without effective safeguards or constraints in place to protect people\u2019s human rights from invasive biometric surveillance. Brought by anti-knife campaigner Shaun Thompson, who was wrongfully identified by the Met\u2019s system and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":888145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2546,22587,46],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-888144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-landmark","8":"category-legal","9":"category-technology"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/888145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}