The Home Office says its Immigration Enforcement service will soon test the use of live facial recognition (LFR) on people immigrating to the UK via legal ports of entry.

The short proof of concept trail will test the effectiveness of LFR at Holyhead using equipment from South Wales Police and Greater Manchester Police to identify individuals who appear on UK watchlists prohibiting them from entering the UK.

The two police departments will also assist in managing the system’s technical and assurance aspects, using their experience in avoiding bias within their own LFR systems.

In the coming weeks, LFR will be deployed at ports where those seeking entry to the UK will pass through “zones of recognition” which monitor people via camera.

The Holyhead port, which is located in North Wales and serves as one of the main gateways for ferries from Ireland, will first trial the tech for three days this week.

The LFR will be trialled to pick up people on a watchlist as they move through the ports, but decisions and next steps will be left up to trained immigration officers if a person is identified by the technology.

The LFR technology is meant to “assist IE personnel to make identification rather than acting as an autonomous machine-based process devoid of user input,” guidance on the tool says.

The trial is meant to not only develop the technology to make it more precise, but also to ensure that it is monitored for its impact on immigration proceedings.

A “robust governance process” will be part of the trial to continually review the impact of the technology as well as to ensure transparency in the trial.

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The trial will see data being shared on the Immigration Enforcement website – while personal data will be omitted, data such as the location, date, time, number of alerts, arrests, and other potentially “helpful” information will be shared in an effort to foster transparency in the trial.

Guidance for the trial also states that it “recognises the need” to ensure its systems do not rely on inherent biases and “do not disadvantage individuals based on protected characteristics.”

In the case of false positives, demographic data will be retained by the LFR systems to better its training.

The use of live facial recognition in any circumstances is continually controversial as concerns about privacy, surveillance, and bias rock the industry.

However, recent politicised immigration matters concerning the release of prisoners or the re-entry of people banned from entering the UK has put immigration management under an even more sensitive and scrutinous spotlight.