“Live facial recognition cameras planned for every town centre”, reports today’s Telegraph.
Police could be given access to Britain’s passport database to catch criminals under an expansion of facial recognition technology that could be deployed in every city, town and village.
Labour is proposing that police be allowed to compare photos of crime suspects from CCTV, doorbells and dashcams against facial images on government databases, including the passports of 45 million Britons, and immigration records.
The plans are part of a Home Office consultation launched on Thursday to establish a legal framework for all police forces to use facial recognition technology to catch wanted criminals and crime suspects.
As a commenter on the UK Politics subreddit called Eldritch_Lemonade observes,
Oh look, it’s taken 3 months to go from rolling out 10 vans with facial recognition to be used in specific and targeted ways to every town in the country scanning your face constantly
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/live-facial-recognition-technology-to-catch-high-harm-offenders
That Home Office “news story” with the title “Live Facial Recognition technology to catch high-harm offenders” to which Eldritch_Lemonade linked was issued on 13 August 2025. Naughty Eldritch was exaggerating with the “three months”; it’s nearer four. A whole three months and three weeks ago the Home Office reassured us that…
The new vans will operate according to strict rules, which ensure they are only deployed when there is specific intelligence. The College of Policing has clear guidance on how the technology should be used.
These vehicles enable law enforcement to target and locate wanted criminals and suspects for the most serious crimes including sex offences, violent assaults, homicide and serious and organised crime. Forces already using LFR have used it to arrest rape, domestic abuse, knife crime and robbery suspects as well as sex offenders breaching their conditions. The technology has also been used to maintain safety at big public events.
Existing safeguards require checks only to be done against police watchlists of wanted criminals, suspects and those subject to bail or court order conditions like sex offenders. Watchlists are bespoke to every deployment, with officers following strict guidance from the College of Policing guidance when composing a list.
Guidelines? A fig-leaf that may be disregarded at will. And the exceptions will immediately dominate all cases.
Meanwhile, on eBay celebrity stocking masks (for entertainment purposes only) are selling for £20 a pop.
“I was robbed by Matt Damon earlier today!”
I bet everyone reading this a tenner that:
a) This cunning use of technology will be used to finger people for non-offences involving their bins etc, in personal vendettas by employees of the state and, of course, for “non-crime hate incidents”
b) That this technology and those who use it will fuck up on numerous occasions and only the poor sap falsely accused will suffer
c) It will not contribute to a statistically significant rise in the number of crimes solved or criminals banged up
Marius,
I don’t think anyone here is gonna take you up on that.
Dan,
I always knew he was a bad un! How about David Lammy masks? Then start an epic crime wave!
Easy. Wear an N95, and if challenged, tell them you tested positive for Covid last week. Bonus points if you can muster up a coughing fit halfway through your explanation.
Trust us, they’ll only be used for “High Harm” offenses like racial slurs, saying anything derogatory about immigrants and “offensive” posts on X.
I’m always amazed at how blurry the cctv footage of certain ethnic offenders is. Perhaps the technology is set up to only work properly for whitey?
It is all deception.
Tell police that there are terrorist stickers (“stopthesystem.is” advocating mass sabotage) all over the town, as I have (repeatedly) and they do nothing. At least not so far.
As for facial recognition – just today the optician told me that he had filmed some “youths” committing arson, their faces were clearly visible – and the police did nothing.
Facial recognition technology will not be used to counter crime (such as the nutcase who had a go at me in Lower Street today) – but it will be used against “right wingers” – which is the only “crime” the government care about. As was shown in 2024 when the normally incredibly slow “justice” system suddenly became really fast (like a “Drum Head” battle field “court”) – and even the King was roped in to denounce dissent.
neonsnake – if someone was identified as “right wing” wearing a face mask would not help (quite the contrary), and neither would claiming to have Covid.
The authorities only care about such things if they are dealing with muggers or house-breakers – crimes they do not care about anyway. But being “right wing” is a “crime” they care about very much indeed – suddenly Covid and so on, does not matter, not if someone is “right wing”.
Indeed wearing a mask can, if you are “right wing”, get you prison time – but not if you are not “right wing”.
Does this mean burquas are going to be banned then?
Three quick points.
Firstly, what are the government planning to do with all of these newly found criminals? – it’s not like there’s any spare prison spaces.
Secondly, the only people that this would be useful for identifying en mass, (people who’ve come into this country illegally) are the only people who definitely won’t have any records on the British passport database.
Thirdly, I know from bitter experience that the police won’t even bother to turn up to investigate a crime – even when you have multiple CCTV cameras / dashcams etc. capturing clearly identifiable scumbags breaking into your vehicle.
But more importantly, it allows identification who post “hate speech” on social media, You know, the ones who say men can’t become women by simply saying they are.
Jim, December 4, 2025 at 10:30 pm,
Does this mean burquas are going to be banned then?
Er, probably not. In fact, it might be a wily way of normalising their use by the wider public, not just Islamist females, as the only way to conceal one’s face from the cameras that the authorities will be too timid to challenge…
…although then, the aforementioned Islamist females will no doubt flock to the sympathic ears of the BBC, the Guardian and the Independent to kick off about ‘cultural appropriation’ by non-Muslims seeking to retain a degree of privacy in public.
Were I living in England now, I think I’d be looking at burqas for myself.
I think this is a series of masterstrokes. Make facemasks compulsory to prevent the spread of disease, make it illegal for anyone of interest to the police to wear a facemask to facilitate facial recognition, and abolish trial by jury. That way the Government can hoover up all the difficult people it likes with no fear of legal retribution.