‘More needs to be done’ to avoid police facial recognition technology leading to innocent people being wrongfully arrested account to the police service watchdog.
A report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services into police use of facial recognition technology has found a lack of safeguards on the use of the technology retrospectively.
This technology analyses images of unknown individuals after an incident has occurred and compares them to custody images held by the police.
The report found that, whilst the technology can be valuable where used appropriately, more safeguards need to be put into place to prevent wrongful arrests.
Investigators did not always receive the training needed to understand the capabilities and limitations of the technology. It was found that some investigators did not appreciate that retrospective facial technology results should be treated as ‘intelligence rather than evidence,’ and should be corroborated through further enquiries to prevent incorrect identification.
Their report also found that further improvement is required to address the potential for bias in facial recognition technology algorithms which have previously been found to put ethnic minority groups at risk of misidentification. In 2024, the Home Office asked the National Physical Laboratory to assess the performance of the algorithm which found that, at some settings, it was more likely to incorrectly include people with certain protected characteristics in its search results.
His Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary, Kathryn Stone, who is the lead inspector on the report, told the Telegraph, that ‘police had taken steps to address the risks of algorithmic bias and reinforce the need for officers to review results’ but ‘more needs to be done to reduce the risk of people being wrongfully arrested’.
The Justice Gap has previously reported on criticisms which have been directed at the expansion of the technology after previous research findings found that it failed to meet “minimum ethical and legal standards.”
