Report Summary
The Chair of the Scottish Police Authority launched a national conversation on the potential use of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) in Scotland in June 2024. This paper aims to provide a summary of the available information on the use of LFR in a policing context.
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Appendix A: Using LFR in a policing context
Live Facial Recognition (LFR) uses this technology to assess real-time, live video footage of crowds who are passing a camera and automatically compares the images of those in the crowd against a database of people on a predetermined database of images, known as a watchlist. The College of Policing provides guidance to police to ensure that watchlists are intelligence based and proportionate. It is important that these watchlists remain current and relevant to deployments.
The technology will compare these ‘face prints’ with those of individuals on this watchlist. If the resultant image is sufficiently similar to one held in the database, then an alert is created and sent to the operational staff in the area to enable a decision to be made as to whether the individual should be engaged with. Following a decision to proceed, the standard investigative procedures will be followed. Images that do not raise an alert are automatically and immediately deleted.
LFR has many potential uses. The Information Commissioner highlights several including advertising (e.g. estimating footfall in advertising space, measuring engagement with advertising space), age estimation when buying restricted goods or entering age-restricted premises, and queue time monitoring and management in airports. Currently LFR is not deployed as part of policing in Scotland, however, it was first used by policing in England and Wales in 2017.
