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Police forces in Wales have launched a facial recognition app which has raised concerns about human rights being breached. It is the first time in the UK that the app has been used to identify individuals in near real-time. The app, known as Operator Initiated Facial Recognition, or OIFR, will be used by South Wales Police and Gwent Police. The app will allow officers to use their phones to confirm someone’s identity.
The app has already been tested by 70 officers across south Wales and will be used on people who have died or are unconscious, as well as people who are unable to or refuse to provide details. Police said its use on unconscious or dead people would help officers to identify them promptly so their family can be reached with care and compassion. Police also said cases of mistaken identity would be easily resolved without the need to visit a police station or custody suite.
Civil liberties and privacy group Big Brother Watch has raised concerns about the ramifications of the OIFR app. Jake Hurfurt, of Big Brother Watch, stated, “This unregulated surveillance tech threatens to take that fundamental right away.” Another civil liberties group, Liberty, accused the technology of being “a deeply invasive breach of our privacy rights, data protection laws, and equality laws.” Charlie Whelton of Liberty said, “We urgently need the government to introduce safeguards to protect us as we go about our daily lives, rather than allowing the police to continue to experiment at the expense of our civil liberties.”
Facial recognition technology takes a “probe image”, which is typically a face captured on CCTV or from a mobile phone, and measures the facial features, or biometric data. It then compares that with all custody images on the database shared by police forces. The Court of Appeal ruled the use of automatic facial recognition technology by South Wales Police unlawful in August 2020 following a legal challenge by civil rights group Liberty and Ed Bridges.
Assistant Chief Constable Trudi Meyrick of South Wales Police stated that the new app was able to enhance police “ability to accurately confirm a person’s identity”. Assistant Chief Constable Nick McLain of Gwent Police called embracing the technology an “integral part of effective policing and public safety.” Police will still rely on traditional means of identifying individuals, and the OIFR app will only be used in instances where it is necessary and proportionate to do so, with the aim of keeping individuals and the wider public safe
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