The Ada Lovelace Institute, the independent AI and data research institute, has condemned the UK’s “fragmented and piecemeal” approach to governing facial recognition and other biometric technologies.

According to the research organisation’s latest report, the country’s approach in this arena is failing to provide legal certainty or safeguard the public.

The current “patchwork” governance around police live facial recognition use in particular is “inadequate in practice,” the Institute said, and creates “legal uncertainty, putting fundamental rights at risk and undermining public trust.”

The research has also found that the governance arrangements for all other prevalent biometrics deployments beyond police live facial recognition use are subject to even less adequate governance.

In response, the Institute is urging the UK Government to pass new, risk-based legislation amid rapid expansion of the technology’s use across both the private and public sectors.

Public engagement out of the Institute has underscored that there’s also a clear public expectation for legislation and independent oversight governing the use of biometric technologies.

The calls come amid nearly 800,000 people having had their faces scanned by the Metropolitan Police since 2020, the Institute said, and with the UK’s first permanent facial recognition cameras set to be installed in the Greater London district of Croydon later this year.

The advocacy also comes as a new generation of biometric technologies have been claimed to remotely infer people’s emotions, attention levels, and even truthfulness.

Recommended reading

• UK Coalition Calls for “Immediate Stop” to Live Facial Recognition Surveillance
• Asda Faces ICO Complaint After “Unlawful” Facial Recognition Trial
• School’s Facial Recognition Tech Blunder Leads to ICO Reprimand

“The lack of an adequate governance framework for police use of facial recognition – one of its most visible and high-stakes applications – is doubly alarming,” said Michael Birtwistle, associate director at the Ada Lovelace Institute.

“It not only puts the legitimacy of police deployments into question, but also exposes how unprepared our broader regulatory regime is, just as deployment is accelerating and expanding into risk-laden new uses such as ‘emotion recognition’.”

“If we can’t establish proper safeguards for police use of live facial recognition – arguably the best governed use case – then we know people are even less protected from the impacts of private sector surveillance and invasive newer applications that try to predict people’s sensitive internal states.

“Policymakers must act to provide legal clarity and protect people and society.”

Don’t Miss Scotland’s Biggest Tech Event!

Join us at DIGIT Expo West on 5th June at the SEC Glasgow. Get leading industry insights across AI, Cyber Security, and Data, and grow your network at Scotland’s largest gathering of tech leaders – with 1500+ attendees, 50+ speakers, and 50+ exhibitors.

Register your FREE place now at: www.digitexpowest.com