Facial Recognition: Police Use

Debate between Dawn Butler and Siobhain McDonagh

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[David Davis]

I am very much on the hon. Lady’s side of that argument, partly because we are a country where it is not normal to stop people and ask for their identity cards, which is why we have had a few battles over that in the past. Also, the technology is prone to slippage. Way back when—probably when the hon. Lady was still at school—we introduced automatic number plate recognition to monitor IRA terrorists coming from Liverpool to London. That was its exact purpose, but thereafter it got used for a dozen other things, without any legislative change or any approval by Parliament.

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Order. Could I ask Members to keep interventions as interventions?

[Dawn Butler]

Thank you, Dame Siobhain. Yes, it is really important that we talk about this openly. That is what we are supposed to do in this place, right? Anybody can be put on the watchlist. Seven police forces are currently using LFR. One that I know of—I am not sure about the others—the Metropolitan Police Service, is in special measures. I do not think it should be given any additional powers while it is in special measures.

The thing is that we know very little about the software or what is in the black box that is developed by these systems. What we can look at is the outcome, and we know that the outcome does not identify very well black women’s faces, especially, and black and Asian people. There is a lower identification threshold for those people, so that is a concern.

It is also really interesting that even when LFR is set at 0.6, a police super-spotter is more accurate. We have specialist police officers who spot people very quickly, and they are more accurate than this system, so it becomes the case that a police service will try to prove that the system it has bought is value for money. We can imagine a police officer not getting many hits with LFR at 0.6 and lowering that to 0.5 so that they can get more hits, which in turn means that more people are misidentified, so there should be regulation around this issue.

Taking away somebody’s liberty is one of the most serious things we can do in society, so we need to think very carefully if we are going to introduce something that accelerates that. It is good that for the first time we are having the debate on this issue. As the right hon. Member for Maldon said, the EU permits LFR only where there is prior judicial authorisation and in cases in which the police need to locate a missing person, for instance. That is something we need to consider.

I want to say this: I like technology. I am very much into our civil liberties. We need to protect our digital rights as human beings and individuals. I love technology— I used to be a coder—but we should not rush to do things because people get excited. There are really four people in the debate on this issue. It reminds me of four of my mates when we go out clubbing. Bear with me. We have the person who will stay at home because they are not bothered—they do not care—and we have the people who do not care about this issue: “It is going to happen; let it happen.” We have the person who will come, but they are a bit moany. They do not really like the music, but they will come anyway because they do not want to miss out.

We then have the person who is completely drunk on it all: “Give it to me. I’ll take everything.” There are people who just love anything to do with technology and will say, “Look, let’s just throw it all in the mix and it’ll all be fine.” And there is me. I am the person who likes the music and the food, but I need to keep sober to make sure everyone gets home safely. In this debate about AI, we need to be sober to make sure that everybody gets home safely and that when we roll out AI, we do so in a way that is fair and compassionate and in line with our values as British citizens.