More than half (57%) of people are concerned with biometric data sharing schemes between the police force and private sector to tackle crimes, new research by The Alan Turing Institute’s Centre for Emerging Technology and Security (CETaS) has found.

The research—which includes a survey of the UK population—also discovered that 85% of people were comfortable with police using the technology to verify identities at the border. This fell to around 60% when respondents were asked about police using it to identify criminal suspects in a crowd. Less than a third (29%) were comfortable with biometric data being used by the police to determine if someone’s telling the truth.

It was also revealed that respondents were more likely to trust the use of biometric systems by public sector organisations, such as the police force (79%) and the NHS (66%), as opposed to private companies—not least employers (42%) and retailers (38%).

In most cases, survey respondents believed biometric systems should be explicitly regulated as opposed to outright banned. When asked specifically about bans, however, nearly two-thirds of respondents thought the use of biometric systems in job interviews to assess performance shouldn’t be allowed. They were also supportive of a ban on tracking student or employee engagement, for instance to understand if someone is paying attention.

While looking at the possible future integration of biometric systems across society, 42% of survey respondents predicted that the benefits will “somewhat” outweigh the concerns, and 29% of respondents said that the concerns will either “somewhat” or “far” outweigh the benefits.

The CETaS researchers carried out the survey as part of a wider publication to explore the future of biometric technology for UK policing and law enforcement.

Speaking on the findings, Sam Stockwell, lead author and research associate at The Alan Turing Institute, said: “Our research shows that people are marginally optimistic about the benefits of biometric systems for reducing crime, but there’s also a clear acknowledgement that those using them need to provide the general public with greater confidence that appropriate safeguards are in place.”

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The authors believe that existing biometric legislation should be updated to address the risks and harms of new and emerging biometric systems, like age and emotion recognition. They’ve made a series of recommendations, including introducing new legal definitions of “biometrics-based data” to account for how different types of biometric data may be used outside of unique identification, which could have implications for members of the public.

They also propose new codes of practice around the use of biometric data, and ask the National Police Chiefs’ Council to help improve policing transparency by creating a nationwide register of where biometric systems are deployed by forces. They mention that police forces and relevant government departments, such as the Home Office, should also organise inclusive roundtable discussions on future biometric technologies, to better understand shared areas of concern and opportunity for future public safety activities.

Professor Tim Watson, science and innovation director for defence and national security at The Alan Turing Institute, further remarked: “There’s a growing demand to find new ways to protect our personal data due to increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity threats and identify fraud techniques and biometrics is likely to play a crucial role. We hope that this research will help policymakers to understand where the gaps are and plan accordingly.”