Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of the recommendation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission of the 12 March 2019 that the use by the police of automated facial recognition technology should cease until independent impact assessments and consultations have been carried out.
How the police use technology to protect the public is an operational matter for them. The Government supports the police use of new technologies like facial recognition to identify and locate criminals, in accordance with the law. The High Court has ruled there is a clear and sufficient legal framework, including the Equality Act, for police use of live facial recognition in the UK.