Security and Policing: Facial Recognition Technology

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for tabling this Question for Short Debate today. As other noble Lords have said, this is a very important matter and I hope we can come back to it in a much longer debate—maybe even as part of a government Bill as it is a very important issue. It is certainly time that we considered the issues of facial recognition technology today in relation to security and policing. As this is a short debate and I have no additional time for my contribution, I shall not respond in detail to the points other noble Lords have made, although I shall make some reference to them in my remarks.

The first duty of government is to keep its citizens safe, and the types of crimes being committed today and the role of computing—the internet, cybercrime, terrorism and so on—have changed dramatically. If you look back to the 1980s, or the 1960s or 1970s, completely different crimes were being committed; that is just a matter of fact. Technology itself has also provided the vehicle for these new forms of crimes to be committed—things that we would never have heard of when I was growing up. So it is important that we are able to use this technology to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice.

As many noble Lords have said, the challenge is for both government and Parliament to set the right balance between ensuring that the police and security services have the right tools, with the appropriate safeguards, to keep us safe and, on the other hand, to protect people’s personal liberty and privacy. That is the basic balance and the challenge for us all; it comes down to that. When she responds to the debate, I am sure the Minister will set out clearly what safeguards are in place at the moment, how the Government strike the right balance and, particularly, what arrangements they have in place for holding facial images. It has been suggested that there are no government arrangements in place. How will the Government ensure that they review that, and how will they do it as other technologies come into force and become more sophisticated? I am conscious that other technologies are potentially in the marketplace that can recognise you through your voice and other images. As these become more sophisticated and more widely used, how will we make sure that we strike that proportional balance and get that right? That is a very important issue for us all. I hope that the Minister can address those points, and particularly the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, raised. As I said, the issue is about keeping us all safe with the appropriate safeguards in place.

My noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey highlighted how powerful these tools are. As he says, they are out of the bag—I think we all accept that now. These things are changing by the day. He then went on to make another important point about the issue of databases and how they are held. That is the important issue: who holds the databases? Are they held by the police or the security services, or are they held by third parties? What right do people have to use them? Can they be copied and used for other means? We need to make sure that those things are regulated and we get them right.

The noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, made the important point about the need for national and international technological standards in facial recognition. He talked about DNA and fingerprinting, which again is very important. I agree that there are all these cameras around and their quality can vary dramatically, from very grainy images to very detailed images. So it is also important that we get the standards correct so that they can be used to protect us.

The noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, highlighted the important role that these technologies play in the fight against terrorism, for the security services. I fully support the use of such technologies in that respect but, again, we should always ensure that they are used with the appropriate safeguards. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans set that point out in terms of the debate that we need. I talked at the start of my remarks about data: what it is, what we have and how we protect it. We need to come back to the issue at a later date, but I shall end my remarks there.