The rollout comes with strict operating guidelines
The Home Office has announced the deployment of 10 new Live Facial Recognition (LFR) vans to seven police forces across England, arming officers with mobile technology to target and apprehend individuals wanted for serious crimes.
The new fleet will be distributed to forces in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley, and Hampshire in the coming weeks. The move is part of a broader government strategy to bolster police presence, including a commitment to recruit 13,000 more officers by 2029.
According to the Home Office, the vehicles will be used to specifically target wanted criminals and suspects involved in serious offences, including homicide, sexual assault, violent attacks, and organised crime. Police forces already using the technology have reported success in arresting suspects for rape, domestic abuse, knife crime, and robbery. The Metropolitan Police, for example, reported 580 arrests using LFR over a 12-month period.
The rollout comes with strict operating guidelines. The vans will only be deployed when there is specific intelligence, and the technology will only check live feeds against bespoke watchlists of wanted individuals. The College of Policing has provided clear guidance for its use, and every match flagged by the technology will be manually verified by a trained officer.
An independent test by the National Physical Laboratory found that the algorithm used in the vans is accurate and shows no bias based on ethnicity, age, or gender.
Simultaneously with the deployment, the government will launch a public consultation to shape a new legal framework for the technology’s use. The consultation will focus on appropriate safeguards and oversight to ensure transparency and maintain public confidence.
