Facial Recognition and the Biometrics Strategy

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to participate in this debate under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) on securing it. My speech will be neither as lengthy nor as expert as his. My interest in this matter arises from the issue in my constituency last year when a report in the Manchester Evening News revealed that the intu Trafford Centre had been working with Greater Manchester police to use live facial recognition technology. I had not been made aware of that previously, and as far as I know, none of my constituents, or the other members of the public, knew of it either. Following the report in the Manchester Evening News, the intu Trafford Centre and Greater Manchester police suspended the pilot.

Like my colleagues, I suspect that many of our constituents would support the use of facial recognition and other technologies to prevent crime, keep us safe, catch criminals or trace missing and vulnerable people, which is something that I understand the British Transport police are considering. However, as we have heard, the use of the technology raises a number of issues, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West drew attention to. I have discussed some of them directly with local police in Greater Manchester, and at national level. I am grateful to the police officers who have spoken to me for their openness in those discussions. It is clear that the police themselves feel that there is a pressing need for the national framework that would make effective use of the technology possible. For now, they do not feel they have that.

From my perspective, and in the light of the experience in my constituency, I think that the framework will need to address decision making, who takes a decision to use such technology in a particular context, oversight and, importantly, accountability. How can such use be scrutinised and how can the police and other state authorities be made accountable to the public? I say that because what is happening could constitute a significant intrusion into the privacy of individual citizens whose record contains nothing criminal or threatening, and who are merely going about their daily business. It is important that the use of the technology in relation to the majority of citizens should be both appropriate and proportionate.

Issues that concern me include the size and content of any watchlist that might be constructed—particularly vis-à-vis the effectiveness of the size of the watchlist. In the Manchester Evening News report it was revealed that 30 million people per annum visit the intu Trafford Centre. It is an iconic destination in my constituency. However, over the sixth-month period during which the technology was being deployed, only one positive identification was made. That makes me question whether it was right to draw so many members of the public into the ambit of the experiment, for what seems to be a low level of effectiveness.

We also have to consider where the technology is being used. The police themselves said to me that some events or venues will be more suitable, and some less. Also we need to consider why it is used—at whose initiative or request such technology is deployed. In the Trafford Centre the intu management themselves had suggested it to Greater Manchester police. Is it right that police priorities should be set by the wishes of private enterprises? If that can be right, and in some circumstances there can be a partnership approach between the police and private entities, if the private entity draws a disproportionate benefit from the activity is it not right that it should pay for it? Football clubs pay for additional police protection at football matches.

We have heard concerns about potential ethnic bias in the databases and technologies that are currently available. I am told that what is on the market, as it were, at the moment is better at matching north European and south-east Asian males than other ethnic categories. That relates to the countries in which the algorithms that underpin the technology were developed, but from the public’s point of view we can say that if there is any ethnic disparity, or perception of it, in the way the technologies apply, it is bound to sow public mistrust. It cannot be right that we make use of technologies that do not treat all communities equally.

I have mentioned my concerns about where decisions are taken in police and other public agencies. It has been made clear by regulators that that should be at the most senior strategic level, and in my view it should be in the context of an absolutely transparent national framework. I also think we must think about mechanisms for accountability both to individual members of the public and the community that a police force serves overall.

Finally, while we are not going to halt the speed of spread of technology, and I think that we can expect more resources to go into such technology in the future, there is a question about how we prioritise resources vis-à-vis effectiveness and public buy-in. The static facial recognition technologies that have been used have excited much less contention and public concern. People can understand that the police hold a database of those with previous convictions and criminal records, and that they will check, where they have got someone whom they are not able to identify, against those records. I understand that that database is in need of new investment, which it is not currently scheduled to receive. I ask the Minister whether that might be the first priority for investment in facial recognition technologies; can the investment that is needed in the police national database be brought forward?

I am glad we have had the opportunity to debate the matter in Parliament today. I would be misleading the House if I suggested that it was causing widespread concern among my constituents, but in fact it should be. How the technology is being used, and the context in which we are made aware of its use, should concern us all. That is not to say it should not be used, but in the absence of a clear legislative or regulatory framework for its use, I do not think it would be right for the House not to ask those questions today.

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[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. This excellent discussion has been informed by expert opinion, particularly from my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), whom I congratulate on securing this important debate. I think the public would be shocked to hear about the lack of legislative framework and guidance, and the potential for such intrusion into people’s lives by the state.

My hon. Friend spoke about the need for us all to understand the technology that could be used, and to ensure that the frameworks we set out are relevant and keep pace with legislation. That must be informed by a principles-based framework, because legislation will never keep up with the technology used by law enforcement or private operators. Several Members mentioned the police national database and the unlawful processing of custody images by police forces. That is not a good starting point for this debate, given that the Home Office’s response to that issue has been poor and the delays in the auto-deletion of images are worrying.

My hon. Friend mentioned the need for ethics by design to ensure that any biases, particularly against people from BME backgrounds, are built out of such technologies from the beginning and are not allowed to be replicated and harden. He described well the astonishing fact that there is no legal basis for these invasive, pervasive technologies and highlighted clear gaps in the biometric strategy in failing to address those issues. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke powerfully about the consequences of false positives, and raised basic questions about the rights of innocent people. Those questions should be answered. We should not need to hold this debate to speak about the right of innocent people not to have their privacy undermined, and about the police unlawfully holding images of people who have committed no crime.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) spoke about her personal experience and the Trafford Centre in her constituency. She made the important point—I have had the same conversation—that the police want and need a transparent, national and consistent framework, because they feel that they have to make things up as they go along. Experiences will differ: South Wales police has demonstrated a completely different attitude from the Met’s in rolling out facial recognition, and it cannot be right for people to experience different technologies in completely different ways and with different attitudes, depending on the police force in the area where they live.

[Kate Green]

My hon. Friend is right to say that the police want a clear, national framework, and it cannot be right that different police forces operate in different ways. Greater Manchester police has stopped using that technology altogether, but there may be circumstances where we would like it to be deployed to keep us safe.

[Louise Haigh]

That is completely right, and that is why this debate and the framework are so important. We cannot allow the police, with all the best intentions, to attempt to use this technology and then in some cases to mess it up—as they will—and have to roll it back. We want to ensure that the framework is in place so that the police can go ahead with confidence and the public have confidence. We must ensure that biases are designed out and that people accept the intrusion into their privacy and understand that such technology is being used proportionately and out of necessity. At the moment we cannot have confidence in that, which is why this debate is so important.