LONDON — The Metropolitan Police announced plans to expand its use of live facial recognition technology into London's West End and Soho by December. The deployment will involve static cameras in these areas, with further expansion to six additional areas planned for 2027.

These new static cameras will be fixed, potentially attached to street furniture. Live facial recognition technology scans the faces of individuals passing its lens and compares them with a watchlist of wanted suspects. The Metropolitan Police hopes local councils will contribute to the cost of this expansion.

Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley stated, "Facial recognition is one of the most revolutionary technology advances in policing in recent years." He added, "Public confidence in this is clear – around 80% of Londoners support its use." Rowley also said, "We want to build on our success by introducing this capability to the West End and Soho by December." According to Rowley, the use of static cameras will assist in reducing crime in central London's high-footfall areas.

The Metropolitan Police previously tested live facial recognition using vans deployed for short periods and conducted an experiment with a static camera in Croydon, south London. A six-month pilot of static cameras in Croydon resulted in 173 arrests while cameras were positioned at both ends of the high street. During this pilot, the system scanned 470,000 faces, with only one person wrongly identified. This individual was not arrested and was allowed to leave.

The Metropolitan Police states that any arrest decision following an alert is made by a human. The sensitivity of its algorithm has been reduced to address bias. The police also indicated that cameras will move locations based on identified crime trends, and the use of the cameras will be advertised beforehand. Faces not matching a suspect are deleted from the system almost instantly.

Silkie Carlo, a representative of Big Brother Watch, commented on the expansion. "Expanding the use of live facial recognition to static cameras is an alarming escalation of an intrusive technology which has already scanned the faces of millions of innocent Londoners," Carlo said. She added, "Forcing people to enter a digital police lineup in the capital's busiest and most popular destinations is an affront to the idea that you should not have to identify yourself to the police if you have done nothing wrong."