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Police have been warned against using live facial recognition technology to identify potential witnesses and not just suspects.
Fraser Sampson, the biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner, has described the proposal by the College of Policing as a “somewhat sinister development”.
It “treats everyone like walk-on extras on a police film set rather than as individual citizens free to travel, meet and talk,” he warned.
The commissioner was responding to guidance from the College of Policing which suggested victims of crimes and potential witnesses could be placed on police watchlists.
“How commonplace will it become to be stopped in our cities, transport hubs, outside arenas or school grounds and required to prove our identity?” asked Mr Samspon
The former officer for West Yorkshire Police and the British Transport Police said: “The ramifications for our constitutional freedoms in that future are profound.
“Is the status of the UK citizen shifting from our jealously guarded presumption of innocence to that of ‘suspected until we have proved our identity to the satisfaction of the examining officer’?
“If so, that will require more than [guidance] from the College of Policing: it will require parliamentary debate,” he said.
The issue is expected to be raised in the House of Lords this week by Liberal Democrat peer Lord Clement-Jones.
Fraser Sampson said the policing tool required a parliamentary debate
Civil liberty groups have also criticised the College of Policing’s Authorised Professional Practice document, describing it as an “atrocious policy and a hammer blow for privacy and liberty”.
It followed a Court of Appeal ruling in 2020 that the use of facial recognition cameras by South Wales Police as part of a pilot scheme breached…
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Source : skynews
