BTP expands Live Facial Recognition trial into London Underground stations

This is the latest step in the project designed to assess how the technology performs in a railway setting and is the culmination of months of hard work on the part of BTP officers and colleagues at TfL, the Rail Delivery Group, the Department for Transport and the London Mayor’s Office.

Chief Superintendent Chris Casey, BTP’s senior officer responsible for the project, said: “This marks an important new stage in our trial of LFR technology. Expanding deployments into London Underground stations will help us to assess the technology in a different transport environment, while continuing to refine how it’s used across the railway network.”

Casey continued: “Our deployments are intelligence-led and focused on identifying people wanted by the police or the courts, including those suspected of serious offences and those who may be breaching bail conditions or court orders.”

Further, Casey noted: “Our focus remains on protecting the public, preventing crime and bringing offenders to justice, while ensuring the technology is used lawfully, proportionately and transparently at all times.”

Supporting early intervention  

Siwan Hayward, director of security, policing and enforcement at TfL, responded: “Live facial recognition has the potential to be a powerful additional tool in helping the police to quickly identify those wanted for high-harm offences. It supports early intervention and helps to prevent incidents before they happen.”

Hayward added: “The trial is an important step in understanding how this technology can be used on the London Underground in a targeted and proportionate way with strict safeguards in place. We will be monitoring and assessing the impact of LFR through this trial over the next four months.”

In operation, the LFR cameras work by scanning faces and comparing them to a watchlist of individuals who are wanted by the police or the courts or who are subject to conditions designed to protect the public. If there’s a match, then the system generates an alert. An officer will review the alert and carry out further checks before deciding whether any action is necessary.”

Those individuals who prefer not to enter the recognition zone will have alternative routes available, while the images of anyone not on the authorised database will be deleted immediately and permanently.

“Disturbing and dystopian”

Commenting on TfL’s trial of LFR cameras on the London Underground, Big Brother Watch’s director Silkie Carlo said: “This is a disturbing and dystopian expansion of live facial recognition that will capture millions of innocent people’s faces. Far from reserving this for exceptional cases, the police are now using live facial recognition routinely in the sort of pervasive way you might expect in China, but not in a democracy.”

Carlo went on to state: “This is error-ridden Artificial Intelligence (AI) surveillance technology that treats the public like suspects and turns us into walking ID cards. In BTP’s trials this year, there was a 100% fail rate, checking over half a million commuters’ faces only to trigger one alert which was a misidentification.”

In conclusion, Carlo commented: “BTP should return to proper policing and stop using AI surveillance tech that belongs in dystopian fiction.”