Facial recognition cameras lead to suspect arrest every 90 minutes in crime crackdown

Live facial recognition cameras scanning the streets of England and Wales led to an arrest roughly every 90 minutes during deployments last year, according to data obtained through freedom of information requests.

Across 369 separate operations carried out by 14 of the country's 45 territorial police forces, approximately 9.25 million faces were checked against watchlists, resulting in 1,317 people being taken into custody.

Around 450 of those detained were suspected of violent offences.

The Metropolitan Police accounted for the majority, deploying the technology 231 times, scanning 4.2 million faces and arresting 1,133 individuals.

TRENDING

Stories

Videos

Your Say

In January, the government unveiled plans to expand the programme nationwide, quintupling the fleet of surveillance vans from 10 to 50.

The technology has proved instrumental in tracking down suspects who might otherwise have evaded justice.

Dejean South, 25, avoided capture for over a year following a break-in in January 2024 before facial recognition cameras picked him out in Woolwich in March last year.

He subsequently received a suspended 22-month sentence at the Old Bailey for aggravated burglary and bail breaches.

In another case, Oghenekaro Adeda, 28, was spotted by a camera in Lewisham in July last year while subject to a sexual harm prevention order for harassment and stalking.

Officers found he had been concealing his browsing history using a private application, breaching the order's terms.

He is currently serving 20 months.

At last year's Notting Hill Carnival, the cameras contributed to 61 arrests, one involving a man accused of stabbing a victim five times with a machete.

The pace of adoption has accelerated sharply, rising from 63 deployments in 2023 to 246 the following year before reaching 369 in 2025.

On average, the systems processed 78 faces per minute and flagged a person of interest roughly every 40 minutes.

Deployments have become a fixture at major events, from Premier League fixtures and concerts to air shows and international rugby.

Merseyside police ran the cameras for approximately five hours outside the Everton v Manchester United match in February.

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

• Facial recognition cameras defended by ex-detective as fear amongst Britons grows: 'They make Britain safer!'
• Three in five Britons fear being wrongly caught by 'Big Brother' facial recognition tech
• Police expand live facial recognition to one of Britain's most touristic areas and key crime hotspot

Hertfordshire, Merseyside and Suffolk forces used the technology for the first time last year, while Cheshire, Norfolk, Cambridge and British Transport Police have all begun deployments this year.

Croydon in south London became home to the first permanent facial recognition cameras last summer, though they operate only when officers are on site.

Former Scotland Yard Detective Peter Bleksley told GB News: "It's a wonderful use of this technology.

"There are two police forces that need to be singled out for praise here, and that is both the Metropolitan Police and South Wales, because in the absence of any legislative framework, because Parliament has not enacted laws for this, they have courageously ploughed ahead with deploying this technology.

He added: "The technology has been developed to such a point where it is so accurate that when it scans a massive crowd and it will scan all those faces in the flick of a finger.

"If you are not on a wanted database, it destroys that image. It does not retain it in any way, shape or form. So this isn't some huge data hoovering exercise, this is pinpoint accuracy. This is catching bad people and it is helping."

Privacy campaigners remain deeply uneasy about the expansion.

Akiko Hart, director of Liberty, told the Times: "As this data shows, millions of people across the country are having their faces scanned as they go about their daily lives without consent and often without even realising.

"The data raises serious questions about how this technology is being deployed, given that most people stopped by the police were not arrested."

Critics have likened the practice to "continual fingerprinting" of the public and highlight the absence of primary legislation governing its use, alongside concerns about disproportionate false positives affecting women and ethnic minorities.

Polling showed more than three in five Britons fear being wrongly implicated by "Big Brother" facial recognition technology.

The polling - conducted by independent market research agency Opinium - probed the British public on their views of live facial recognition (LFR) technology amid Labour's push to roll it out to all police forces nationwide.

Supporters counter that fewer than one in 500,000 bystanders was wrongly flagged last year, with no false alerts resulting in arrest.

King's College London polling found a majority of the public support its use.

A National Police Chiefs' Council spokeswoman said: "There are checks and balances in place to ensure that policing's use of the technology is responsible, accurate and fair, including the review of all potential matches by trained operators before any further action can be taken."

Our Standards: The GB News Editorial Charter