Facial Recognition Technology: Safeguards

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the Minister’s response in which he said that legislation and regulation are important. It is overdue by eight years, to be precise, during which the Home Office, under various Governments, had the worrying view that existing legislation is up to the job. Why is the consultation so focused on police use of facial recognition, when it has also had rapid and uncontrolled growth in the private sector? Frankly, it is the Wild West on the high street, which can have life-changing consequences for some innocent shoppers. Will the Government undertake to look at the private sector as well?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Baroness can make representations on those matters as part of the consultation. We are looking at the public sector because we are the Home Office and are responsible for policing. That is therefore the issue that we are examining. There need to be some safeguards, regulation, and an understanding of and groundwork for that. I can tell the noble Baroness that nobody who is innocent of an offence needs to worry about facial recognition technology—nobody. That is why we are looking at these issues. I will defend facial recognition technology at this Dispatch Box and elsewhere. The consultation is there to allow this House and others to make their views known on what is an effective tool in crime fighting. The noble Baroness is shaking her head, but I ask her: if somebody who is guilty of a crime and on a wanted list walks past a facial recognition camera, should they not be arrested?