please empty your brain below
It would be interesting to be told what defines a "sought person" - might this be an absconder/escapee, or a person wanted for questioning (with or without an arrest warrant, and over what geographical area) or possibly something else?

dg writes: see policy, section 4

Ian | 02.12.25 - 7:15 a.m. | #

If you're happy for LFR deployments to cease, you're happy for people who should not be out on the streets (because they have done something which warrants arrest or recall to prison) continue to wander around unchecked. You're also happy to rely instead on police officers' memories of mugshots (which are far more likely to be erroneous and biased).

The arrests made include robbers, rapists, and even a paedophile with an underage girl.

I am far keener than you are that we catch criminals and keep the public safe.

Harry | 02.12.25 - 7:20 a.m. | #

Yes they were outside Brixton tube station back in August and caused much concerntiom amongst innocent people who were rightfully scared about being misidentified and something happening to them, its all what everyone was talkibg about in the local cafe around the corner. Sad times. It made me feel uncomfortably too.

David | 02.12.25 - 7:38 a.m. | #

If there are 16000 people on their watchlist and they have apprehended 1000 of them that is pretty impressive, especially as the operations are not covert.

Once word gets round it is likely they will move from open operations like the ones you saw to more covert operations, especially at transport hubs.

As someone who drove around London unwittingly for 6 months in a un-MOTed car I'm surprised how ineffective a lot of London's camera networks are at picking up things like unlicensed/uninsured drivers etc which also tends to indicate other criminal activity.

gruntbuggly | 02.12.25 - 7:42 a.m. | #

It’s not all about arrests; it’s about deterrence. And they seem to have pulled in some pretty unsavoury characters who centuries of ‘good coppering’ on the beat would never have found. I wish it wasn’t necessary but it is. And roll on the outlawing of concealed faces in public places.

David B | 02.12.25 - 7:43 a.m. | #

Assuming this is typical, the police have deployed 6 officers 200 times for 6 hours to find 2000 people and make 1000 arrests. And find 12 “false positives” which I am sure was a great comfort to those knowing they were suspected of crime because they resembled someone on the watchlist.

So that is about 10 stops and 5 arrests per deployment, or roughly 2 stops and 1 arrest per hour for six police officers. Or one arrest for every 7.2 hours of PC time. And they’ve take biometric data from over 3 million people to do it. If that is an efficient use of resources, it explains why there is hardly ever anyone available to attend a report of burglary.

Where this is heading is the surveillance state where a camera on every street corner has face recognition technology and you are tracked by the police as you go about your daily life. (In a sense this is already happening via your mobile phone and contactless payments.)

Would you be comfortable with a policeman on each corner asking for your papers?

Andrew | 02.12.25 - 7:50 a.m. | #

I am heartened to see your deep dive into the policy rather than relying on a the knee-jerk which seems so common these days. A lot of people's questions/concerns are often answered/allayed with a good policy document (or confirmed/confused with a poor one). I'd be interested in the deterrence aspect too - if a low level criminal likes to visit Westfield often and now has to stay away, would this be a small incentive to push them away from more serious or repeated offending? Just putting "grit in the gears" of an easy criminal life seems a good plan to me, on the face of it. I'd also be concerned about more authoritarian administration abusing the powers, however, the checks and balances in this country are quite robust and I have confidence in the,(albeit Democracy is fragile etc.)

mdc | 02.12.25 - 8:11 a.m. | #

Judging by the location the one at Westfield was on private land, was the one at TCR on TfL property, if the van isn't parked on 'public land' do the same rules apply - alternatively, what if these are live demonstrations - 'want to buy this surveillance system to help identify shoplifters'?

I also feel that this is a PR stunt, the need to be seen doing something, but the surveillance state already exists. The majority of us already voluntarily carry around tracking devices (mobile phones).

Still Anon | 02.12.25 - 8:14 a.m. | #

If someone covers at least half their face with a mask I wonder how effective is the surveillance.

Geoff | 02.12.25 - 8:14 a.m. | #

I am also not criminally concerned but should we have a regime change such as we currently have in the USA, I would be worried that the data could in the future be used for other reasons like ICE is in the States.

Martin | 02.12.25 - 8:31 a.m. | #

> nor do they have the specific intention of catching ne'erdowells going about their daily business

I don't really take issue with the police having the specific intention of catching ne'erdowells.

tomb | 02.12.25 - 8:42 a.m. | #

My bigger concern is scope creep. It's all well and good to say that today we're only targetting robbers, rapists and peados. But what about tomorrow?

And who is checking that the Met Police are doing what they say they are doing?

Jon Jones | 02.12.25 - 8:57 a.m. | #

The final point here is perhaps the most important. The usage may be currently OK in a democratic society, but the normalisation of this would allow any more extreme government to instantly cast the net wider. Key points - who gets put on the watchlist? And do they decide to keep all images. Think about it.

Secondly - given the stats presented, the success rate seems pretty poor in cost-benefit terms. The technology must be pretty expensive! But there is always money for technology rather than staff!

Chris L | 02.12.25 - 9:03 a.m. | #

I would not like Nigel Farrage to have control of this equipment or the information it provides. I think that's reason enough for opposing its use.

Brian | 02.12.25 - 9:10 a.m. | #

Probably trying the get back the felons who've been let out of prison by mistake.

MKIan | 02.12.25 - 9:26 a.m. | #

If you want to dodge the cameras, check the boroughs named in the black strip at the top of the Met’s LFR webpage. Today no black strip, so no cameras.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 02.12.25 - 9:45 a.m. | #

They were filming people coming and going from Richmond Station a few weeks back and that site doesn't appear to be on your list which makes me question the list.

And anyone who says you have nothing to fear if you've done nothing wrong is clearly forgetting history.

ap | 02.12.25 - 10:08 a.m. | #

My normal instinct would be to be horrified by this.
But I remind myself that my working life was in the City and I lived on the Isle of Dogs. That has meant that on at least three occasions I missed being the victim of terrorist attacks only by pure luck and a matter of minutes.
So on balance I'll stand down my fears, whilst worrying about this technology being available to the Trump/Putin apologists.

IslandDweller | 02.12.25 - 10:11 a.m. | #

Sunglasses/eyeglasses that can render the current generation of facial recognition ineffective (discreetly) are a thing.

If the system can't see your eye spacing (in the infrared spectrum) then it can't process you to attempt a match; it can only point out to operators that it can't see your eyes. Legally that should not lead to a police stop, but I suspect there isn't case law yet and has not come to awareness of the "auditing" community

MilesT | 02.12.25 - 10:14 a.m. | #

Of course, this technology isn't just being used by the Met. I know that private companies use something very similar. I believe in the world of casinos where card counters ply their trade (legal to do, but casinos don't like it, so will kick you out), these kinds of systems are widely used.

But retailers are beginning to use this technology to identify known shoplifters. I'm not at all sure that they have to put up signs beyond the usual CCTV ones.

On the one hand, I feel for retailers are often relentlessly targeted by shoplifters, but on the other, do these private companies publish their false positive lists? Do we know that they've been trained on a wide variety of faces and don't "discriminate" towards any particular group?

Adam Bowie | Homepage | 02.12.25 - 10:21 a.m. | #

does the format of current passport photography conform with this street surveillance face modelling ? can passport images be shared with the police database ? ... for instance, if i were "missing", could my passport photo be added to the list and searched for ?

tristan forward | Homepage | 02.12.25 - 10:26 a.m. | #

There is currently no real regulation of LFR, despite it being radically different to other forms of data processing. The ICO is in no practical position to provide the necessary verification that biometrics are actually handled and deleted in the way the Met claim.

Moreover, the Met's legal basis for gathering this highly sensitive data on millions of innocent people is deeply questionable and is accordingly being challenged in Court.

Given the well-documented institutional failings, biases and prejudices of the Met and its officers I do not trust them an inch. That is on top of the question of efficiency and effectiveness. One arrest per 7 officer hours doesn't sound a good use of taxpayer money.

Incidentally the misidentification rate is much higher than you suggest - it should be calculated based on the number of matches, whether false or positive.

Stopping 12 innocent people - who have wrongly been forced to produce ID as if we are in a "papers please" society - is an unacceptable price to pay in my view. Blackstone was quite right: it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.

FL360 | 02.12.25 - 11:53 a.m. | #

I flew back to the UK from the US last night. They were testing facial recognition at TSA security although it took a couple of attempts and a manual intervention for me to be processed. This was then matched to a second facial recognition system at the boarding gate. Presumably this is more reliable/trustworthy than the gate staff checking passports. There was a sign saying optional. The person before me at the gate said he was an American passport holder and was allowed through without doing the gate facial recognition, although I think he must have been considered to have opted out rather than a blanket exemption for US citizens.

Adrian | 02.12.25 - 12:04 p.m. | #

Thank you for the interesting and detailed post.
Whilst I get the idea that ‘Big Brother’ is watching us, which can be disconcerting - He has been doing it since well before 1984. What I find more worrying is the proposal to limit trial by jury - a right we have had since the Magna Carta 1215

RogerEssex | 02.12.25 - 12:48 p.m. | #

"If you want to dodge the cameras, check the boroughs named in the black strip at the top of the Met’s LFR webpage. Today no black strip, so no cameras"

Interestingly, the wifi at Watford central library blocks this address.

Nico | 02.12.25 - 12:53 p.m. | #

FL 360: "It is better that 10 rapists on the run should go free than one man 'suffer' through (pause for drama) having to produce some paper".
I don't think so.

David B | 02.12.25 - 1:36 p.m. | #

I have no problem being either scanned or stopped, I have always found the police very polite and more than keen to explain the reason why they wanted to stop me, we all pass thousands of cameras every day of the week either affixed to buildings or within vehicles etc, it always appears to me to be the people with something to hide who seem to be the greatest opponents of this type of thing.

fishislandskin | 02.12.25 - 4:20 p.m. | #

It seems self-defeating to have a warning sign about ‘facial recognition in progress’ if they want to catch people. Ideally you’d expect the cameras and the van to be hidden.
If I wanted to avoid being spotted, maybe I could get one of those blurry blobs to put over my head like you see on TV crime programmes!

ActonMan | 02.12.25 - 5:33 p.m. | #

Scope creep is the phrase of the era.

Digital facial recognition, digital identity cards, mandatory digital services, smart meters, per mile driving charges. I could go on for another 94 lines.

What are we leaving our children?

MilesT | 02.12.25 - 5:48 p.m. | #

I seen a van in west London with a driver with three passengers who were all wearing balaclavas/full face bandanas etc. I guess they are aware of the cameras out there. Worrying and unsettling.

Anyoldname | 02.12.25 - 8:00 p.m. | #

They should use facial recognition technology on public transport.

Ackshley | 02.12.25 - 10:30 p.m. | #

The authoritarian←→libertarian spectrum in full view here today.

Trevor | 02.12.25 - 10:39 p.m. | #

There are two permanent ones in Croydon.

A G | 03.12.25 - 9:00 a.m. | #

only come away with 1000 arrests, not all of which will have been for something very serious - it might not seem serious, but to the victim, crime can be very harmful. 1000 arrests is great news in my opinion.

Michael | 03.12.25 - 9:13 a.m. | #

I'm a magistrate so see what happens after those arrests. Without passing any judgment on the technology or its purpose, the people I've seen who've been picked up by cameras are generally those subject to a 'warrant not backed by bail' - i.e. they've been given a date to appear in court, but didn't turn up, so we approve a warrant for their arrest.

That might be because they were bailed by police to come to court to make their plea; or they were bailed after being found guilty at trial, and had to come back for their sentencing.

Lux | 03.12.25 - 9:44 a.m. | #

It would appear that DG is the modern day incarnation of Old Moore's Almanack... 🤣 Have a read of this BBC news story.

Kevin Too | 04.12.25 - 11:03 a.m. | #











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