The Information Commissioner’s Office has found that both South Wales Police’s and Gwent Police’s use of live and retrospective facial recognition technology (FRT) is compliant with data protection laws in the regulator’s first audit of the tech in policing.

The audit follows the ICO calling on police services to make use facial recognition technology only in “necessary and proportionate” manners, and after the two Welsh police forces adopted a new mobile facial recognition app.

The app allows Police officers to stop people they see who they think may be missing, at risk, or wanted for arrest to better confirm their identity. The phone app allows this to be done immediately or retrospectively through pictures, which the police forces assure are deleted after use.

The ICO’s audit of the tech rollout found that the police forces have provided a high level of assurance that these tools and their use are in line with data protection law.

The ICO said that the forces ensured there was human oversight from trained staff to mitigate the risk of discrimination and to ensure that no decisions are solely automated.

However, the ICO did stress that this audit “serves as a snapshot in time,” and “does not give the green light to all police forces” which may wish to deploy facial recognition technology.

“The use of FRT by the police is frequently in the spotlight, reflecting public concerns about the technology’s use and oversight – including its potential to be intrusive and the risk of both discrimination and mistaken identity,” Emily Keaney, the deputy commissioner for regulatory policy at the ICO said.

“Our recent research found that while almost two-thirds of people surveyed (63%) felt comfortable with police using FRT, their support relies on the technology being accurate, unbiased and respecting of people’s privacy, as well as being used in a way that clearly benefits society.”

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• UK Police Use of Facial Recognition Found to be ‘Unethical’

The use of facial recognition technology by UK police has faced much scrutiny since its introduction in around 2016. South Wales Police Force’s use of the technology was actually found to be ‘unethical’ in an independent study which assessed the rollout of the technology, its apparent bias, and effects on freedom of assembly and expression.

The Ada Lovelace Institute recently pointed out to the major underlying governance issue in the police forces’ use of the technology: the technology has never been approved in parliamentary legislation, so the police’s use of the tech relies on a piecemeal assembly of various laws. This leaves issues surrounding the legality of its various use cases, and the abilities of citizens to claim against the police if they have issues with its use.

The UK’s own human rights regulator, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, also called out the continued roll out of the technology in the UK, with particular concern on how this affects people’s rights to freedom of expression, right to privacy, and freedom of assembly and association.