Security and Policing: Facial Recognition Technology

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for raising this very important issue. As she says, there is no law, policy or oversight on facial recognition. As my noble friend Lord Scriven said, there is no framework for common governance across the UK in terms of the way in which the police use this technology.

I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Wasserman and Lord Evans of Weardale, that there are some very exciting and potentially extremely positive uses for this technology, but it has to be regulated. It cannot just be a free-for-all. As the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, said, clearly there will be legitimate reasons for the use of facial recognition. In terms of “smile to pay”, I can pay using my phone where my phone recognises my face. Thankfully I do not have to smile because I am not usually smiling when I have to dole out money.

One of the worrying anecdotes we have heard this afternoon from the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, was the fact that when he went to a particular place, the camera recognised him from a picture on the internet. We are not just talking about innocent people being arrested who have never been charged, given a caution or been convicted, and that database being used potentially by the police to identify people who are at, say, a demonstration. There is also the potential for using internet images, passport or driving licence photographs. At the moment there is nothing in law or regulation to stop the police integrating those databases—if the Government allow the police to use them—to identify people.

People will say—I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, will say it—that the police and security services have no interest in following everybody around. But the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, at the same time as being a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, was also on its database of extremists without good cause—I am sure. So she could be followed around by these cameras. We really have to ask questions about what is going on. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, said that the train has left the station. It may have done, but it is time the Government got in control of this runaway train.

I have four brief points. There is an urgent need for regulation and oversight of the police use of facial recognition. It cannot be right that the policy on this use of technology is left to the police alone to decide for themselves. There is an urgent need to examine what databases are used in conjunction with facial recognition. I will not repeat all the arguments that we have heard from a number of noble Lords about the custody image database, and the fact that images of innocent people are being held potentially illegally on such databases. As I say, there is a potential for completely innocent people who have just applied for a passport or a driving licence, or even people who for some reason are in the public eye whose images are on the internet, being used in conjunction with police and facial recognition technology.

Something that has not been covered in as much detail is the fact that much machine learning, including automated facial recognition algorithms, tend to be discriminatory—in this case disproportionally misidentifying women and black faces as there are fewer black people and many fewer women on custody image databases from which the automated system learns.

Without regulation and oversight there is the potential for Nineteen Eighty-Four to become a reality, albeit 34 years later than originally envisaged. Will the Minister acknowledge that there are genuine and reasonable causes for concern and reassure the House that the Government are urgently looking into these issues?