The Scottish Biometrics Commissioner Dr Brian Plastow has confirmed that Police Scotland will move ahead with plans to implement live facial recognition (LFR) technology.

The decision was made at a Scottish Police Authority (SPA) meeting on 21 August, where Police Chiefs confirmed that they will continue to engage with the public and key stakeholders.

Police Scotland say they will now take time to understand the technology, governance, proportionality, and high levels of scrutiny required to implement LFR.

The Police will provide a provisional update on the technology uptake in a SPA Policing Performance Committee on 16 September.

The Scottish Biometrics Commissioner Plastow said he welcomed the decision, as he previously advocated for the adoption of LFR.

The adoption of live facial recognition in Scotland comes as the technology is continuously rolled out across police forces in England and Wales. Though controversial, the UK government have been proponents of using the technology for surveillance activity, from the rollout of vans equipped with the tech to using it at protests.

Police Scotland’s chief constable announced last year that the force would explore the use of the technology, despite its controversial rollout in England and Wales.

Since it was formally introduced in the UK, LFR has been subject to a range of court cases, with the South Wales Police’s use of the tech found to be unlawful in 2019, and the Met Police currently facing legal action over use of the technology with lead to the wrongful flagging of a person as a criminal by the technology.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the UK’s equality regulator, has hit out at the Met Police’s facial recognition governance, saying it does not comply with several European human rights conventions including the right to privacy, the freedom of expression, and the freedom of assembly and association.

The Ada Lovelace Institute also brought to light that UK law has never properly legalised the use of the technology – police authorities therefore rely on a piecemeal assortment of laws covering the legality of the technology, making governance and rights guarantees more convoluted.

The commission also pointed out the bias often found in the systems used by police – data from the Met Police shows that the number of black men triggering an ‘alert’ is higher than would be expected proportionally, when compared to the population of London.

Back in June, the EHRC, the Scottish Human Rights Commission, and the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland jointly wrote a letter to Police Scotland raising concerns over the potential roll out of LFR, saying that it could lead to legal challenges and “risk reputational damage to Scottish policing.”

Recommended reading

• UK Police Using Passports For ‘Secretive’ Facial Recognition Searches
• UK Expands Live Facial Recognition in Police Van Rollout
• Ada Lovelace Institute Condemns UK’s Facial Recognition Governance
• UK Police Use of Facial Recognition Found to be ‘Unethical’

“Police Scotland’s claim to be a rights-based force is entirely at odds with any attempt to introduce a tool of mass surveillance to operational policing,” Liz Thomson, Scotland programme director at Amnesty International said.

“Around the world, facial recognition technologies are being used to stifle protest and harass minority communities. These systems violate the right to privacy, threaten the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression, and to equality and non-discrimination.

“In recent months the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland hosted the Metropolitan Police in Edinburgh to reassure Scottish civil society that LFR could be used without detrimental human rights impact. Yet just last week the Equality and Human Rights Commission publicly warned that the Met’s policy on LFR use is unlawful.

“It’s time Police Scotland started listening. If the force continues with its own plans for LFR it will be dragging Scotland backwards on human rights.”