Legal basis

Common law policing powers; DPA 2018 Part 3

Oversight

Force pilot evaluation, due to report after the pilot ends in November 2026

A time-limited trial running from February 2026 to November 2026, first deployed at London Bridge and extended to the London Underground with a deployment at Victoria station on 11 August 2026. The effectiveness evidence here is the most striking thing about this entry, and stands in sharp contrast to the Metropolitan Police's figures for the same technology family. Across 18 deployments between February and July 2026, British Transport Police logged more than 530,000 faces scanned, zero true matches, no arrests attributable to LFR, and one confirmed false alert at King's Cross on 24 February. The Met, by comparison, reported 173 arrests from roughly 470,000 faces at Croydon over a broadly comparable period. That divergence is worth recording plainly rather than resolving: the same class of technology, deployed by two forces in the same country in the same year, has produced radically different yields. Watchlist composition and deployment siting are the obvious candidate explanations, but neither force has published enough for that to be more than inference. The identification of the engine as NEC NeoFace M40 rests on secondary reporting rather than a BTP or NEC primary document.

Source: British Transport Police published information on its LFR pilot · last checked 2026-08-25

Legal basis

Common law policing powers; DPA 2018 Part 3. No dedicated statutory framework

Oversight

No dedicated oversight regime. Home Office consultation on facial recognition law closed February 2026 with results not yet published

Handheld devices allowing an officer to scan and identify a person on the spot. The Mayor of London confirmed in February 2026 that the Metropolitan Police was trialling the technology, following repeated questioning by Green Party London Assembly Member Zoe Garbett, and at a point when the force's own website stated it did not use operator-initiated facial recognition. Liberty Investigates reported that West Yorkshire Police documents anticipated deployment in 2026, though the force said no date had been set, and that Thames Valley had not confirmed timing. Dr Daragh Murray, who co-authored the 2019 independent review of the Metropolitan Police's live facial recognition trials with Professor Pete Fussey while both were at the University of Essex, has questioned whether handheld deployment can meet the same safeguards. Murray and Fussey jointly submitted a response to the Home Office facial recognition consultation in February 2026. An earlier version of this entry attributed that independent review to Queen Mary University of London, which was incorrect: the review was the Essex study. South Wales Police has separately trained over 500 officers to use a handheld facial recognition mobile app.

Source: Mayor of London disclosure, February 2026; Liberty Investigates · last checked 2026-08-20

Legal basis

No dedicated statute. Governing authority is now R (Thompson and Carlo) v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis (High Court, 21 April 2026), read with R (Bridges) v South Wales Police (Court of Appeal, 2020).

Oversight

Force LFR policy documents; ICO engagement

In Thompson the High Court dismissed a judicial review brought by Shaun Thompson and Big Brother Watch's Silkie Carlo, upholding the Met's 2024 LFR policy as lawful and compatible with Article 8 and data protection law. Any account of UK live facial recognition citing only Bridges is now stale. Deployed at targeted operations rather than continuously, with published deployment records and arrest figures. The force says it has arrested more than 2,000 people using LFR since the start of 2024. The deployment model is changing materially. The Croydon fixed-camera pilot, running October 2025 to May 2026, produced 173 arrests from more than 470,000 passers-by with one false alert on the Met's own figures. In June 2026 the Met confirmed fixed LFR cameras would be installed in the West End and Soho before the end of 2026, with six further areas during 2027, and in August 2026 the Mayor of London indicated the Oxford Street cameras would become permanent. This is a shift from mobile, targeted, time-limited deployments towards standing infrastructure, and is arguably a more significant development than any single deployment figure. Use is spreading nationally: Statewatch's June 2026 survey recorded 12 forces using LFR, with trade reporting citing 13 of 43; treat the figure as at least 12 to 13 forces as of mid-2026 and rising. The Home Office announced 40 additional LFR vans in January 2026. First protest use came in May 2026. An investigation by Liberty Investigates and The Times found children had featured at least 1,600 times on live facial recognition watchlists across six forces, including children as young as 12; the UK Joint Committee on Human Rights has formally questioned the Home Secretary about it. Research by London Assembly Member Zoe Garbett found over half of London deployments took place in areas with a higher proportion of Black residents than the city average.

Source: Metropolitan Police LFR publications · last checked 2026-08-25

Legal basis

Common law; considered in R (Bridges) v South Wales Police

Oversight

Court of Appeal judgment 2020 required changes to policy

Deployed for public events including Six Nations rugby fixtures, with continued operations through 2026 including the Swansea Airshow in July 2026 and deployments in Cardiff and Pontypridd in June and July 2026. R (Bridges) v South Wales Police remains the governing appellate authority on this force's use and has not been disturbed. The force has spent roughly £3.5m on the programme, with false alert rates falling over time on its own figures. Separately, South Wales Police has trained over 500 officers to use a handheld facial recognition mobile app, making it a significant operator-initiated facial recognition deployment as well as a live one. The Liberty Investigates and Times investigation into children on facial recognition watchlists found South Wales Police had placed 632 people under 18 on its watchlists since 2022, including six children under 13. The force's own guidance states no one under 13 should be included, and the College of Policing notes the technology performs less reliably on younger children.

Source: R (Bridges) v Chief Constable of South Wales Police [2020] EWCA Civ 1058 · last checked 2026-08-25

Legal basis

DPA 2018 Part 3; ANPR national standards

Oversight

National ANPR Service; Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner

The National ANPR Service processes tens of millions of reads daily. Retention periods and access controls are set nationally.

Source: Home Office National ANPR Service documentation · last checked 2026-08-18

Legal basis

Custody decision support

Oversight

Academic review; extensive published critique

An early and unusually well-documented custody risk-scoring tool, developed by Durham Constabulary with the University of Cambridge, using random forest models trained on historical criminal justice data to sort individuals into risk categories. Operational from 2016 until 2021, when Durham Constabulary discontinued it. The stated reason was the resources required to continually refine and refresh the model to satisfy ethical, legal and governance requirements. A Freedom of Information response obtained by Fair Trials showed the tool assessed 12,200 people a total of 22,265 times across that period. Its use of a commercial postcode-based variable attracted particular criticism. The variable was Experian's Mosaic socio-geodemographic segmentation product, a commercial consumer classification dataset rather than a policing one.

Source: Published academic evaluation and force statements · last checked 2026-08-20

Legal basis

Internal force policy; no dedicated statutory framework for generative AI use

Oversight

Individual force AI-use policy; no independent national oversight body confirmed

At least 21 English forces were using Microsoft 365 Copilot as of February 2026, on a Sky News survey; no later recount has been published, so that figure should be read as a point-in-time count rather than a current one. Governance moved during 2026. Alex Murray, head of the new PoliceAI centre, told the Financial Times in June 2026 that he had instructed several forces in England and Wales to stop using commercially available AI to turn interview recordings into court-ready statements, and warned forces not to use AI for disclosure schedules until compliance checks were complete. Specific forces were not named. The Home Office subsequently listed exploring Copilot capability and establishing appropriate governance and safeguards among PoliceAI's first-year priorities. Individual misuse cases are now emerging, which is a different failure mode from the West Midlands hallucination and worth recording separately. A Derbyshire detective chief inspector is under IOPC-led independent investigation for alleged gross misconduct over using AI to maintain investigative decision logs; a second Derbyshire officer faces a criminal investigation for allegedly using AI to create evidential material in a number of cases; and a Gloucestershire Police staff member was dismissed for repeatedly bypassing blocks to use an AI chatbot for police work.

Source: Sky News investigation, reported via Resultsense · last checked 2026-08-25

Legal basis

Internal force policy; no dedicated statutory framework for generative AI use

Oversight

House of Commons Home Affairs Committee inquiry

West Midlands Police switched off force-wide access to Microsoft Copilot in January 2026 after the tool generated false intelligence about a West Ham versus Maccabi Tel Aviv fixture, and associated disorder, that had never taken place. The fabricated information reached briefing material and shaped a risk assessment. Recorded as paused rather than discontinued. Acting Chief Constable Scott Green described the shutdown as temporary, in place until further notice, both in January and again in March 2026. No evidence of reinstatement had emerged as of August 2026, but a force describing a suspension as temporary is not the same as a decision to stop using a technology permanently, and this tracker records the difference. The force initially denied that AI had generated the erroneous intelligence; the Chief Constable subsequently corrected that evidence. The Home Affairs Committee reported in February 2026 that West Midlands Police failed to apply proper due diligence to false information generated by AI, and criticised what it called a remarkable lack of professional curiosity. This pause did not extend nationally. A Sky News survey published in February 2026 found at least 21 English forces still using Microsoft Copilot.

Source: House of Commons Home Affairs Committee correspondence, reported by ITV News · last checked 2026-08-25

Legal basis

UK GDPR legitimate interests; ICO assessed

Oversight

ICO issued findings on Facewatch in 2023

A private facial recognition system used by retailers rather than by police, which is what makes it worth tracking here: it is a commercial deployment whose output increasingly flows to the state. That flow became direct in July 2026, when Facewatch's Crime Management Platform began automatically alerting police to repeat-offender matches across more than 125 retailers. Until then, retail facial recognition alerts reached police only through a shopkeeper choosing to report. This is a material change to the private-to-state data pathway and the most significant development on this entry. Misidentification harm is now documented repeatedly. Sainsbury's paused use at one store on 17 August 2026 after a customer was falsely accused of shoplifting, while continuing to expand the system from 55 stores towards up to 200 by the end of 2026. Guardian reporting in May 2026 documented shoppers falsely identified struggling to clear their names, with limited routes of appeal. Regulatory position has moved beyond the ICO's 2023 findings: the ICO opened an investigation in February 2026 into a case in which a B&M shopper was wrongly accused of theft. Facewatch obtained ISO/IEC 42001 AI management certification in June 2026. The February 2026 ICO investigation rests on a single regional outlet and would benefit from corroboration against an ICO statement.

Source: ICO statement on Facewatch · last checked 2026-08-25

Legal basis

The Crime and Policing Act 2026 (Royal Assent 29 April 2026), section 181, creates an authorised person gateway for police access to DVLA driver records including the photograph, via the Law Enforcement Data Service, expanding access beyond road traffic matters.

Oversight

Biometrics Commissioner; ICO, which reported a bias finding and is monitoring a planned algorithm replacement; subject of long-running custody image retention criticism

The Home Office states the Act does not itself create a process for searching the DVLA image gallery to identify unknown individuals, and that which non-police galleries may be searched is deferred to a forthcoming Police Reform Bill. Over 25,000 retrospective facial recognition searches are run each month against a pool of more than 19 million custody images. The statutory position changed in 2026 and any account citing only the absence of a framework is now stale. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 opened police access to DVLA driver records including photographs; the Lords rejected an amendment to block facial recognition searching of the roughly 50 million image DVLA database by 123 votes to 40 in March 2026. The substantive framework for which galleries may be searched has been deferred to a further bill. The National Physical Laboratory published an accuracy and equitability evaluation of Cognitec FaceVACS-DBScan ID v5.5 in December 2025, and the ICO's 18 August 2026 statement is explicit about the finding: the algorithm's bias increases the likelihood of incorrect matches for people in some demographic groups. The Home Office and NPCC have put mitigations in place (staff training, oversight reporting, equality impact assessments) alongside plans to replace the algorithm. The ICO continues to engage with HMICFRS, the Home Office and NPCC on the replacement and is reserving the right to take further regulatory action if warranted. A Home Office consultation on the facial recognition framework closed on 12 February 2026 with a government response promised within 12 weeks. That response remained unpublished more than three months past its due date as of August 2026; a July 2026 Lords session shows the Home Secretary being directly pressed on the delay.

Source: Biometrics Commissioner annual reports · last checked 2026-08-25

Legal basis

Force procurement; no dedicated statute

Oversight

None identified beyond the force itself

The first UK force to test PredPol. The force cancelled the contract after saying it was challenging to demonstrate that the programme reduced crime. This is the same pattern seen in Los Angeles and in the Dutch Crime Anticipation System: the operating agency itself was unable to show the software worked.

Source: Liberty Investigates · last checked 2026-08-20

Legal basis

Not established in available sources

Oversight

Subject to legal challenge; independent review conducted by Eticas

At least 23 predictive models developed, with 13 risk models carrying performance data used between 2017 and 2024, covering missing people, antisocial behaviour, and likelihood of committing or suffering crime. An Eticas review of more than 36,000 disclosed model performance scores found low precision, including a burglary prediction model below 10 percent precision for over three years. The force's Offender Management App, designed to hold data on around 300,000 people and described internally as a league table of the area's most dangerous criminals, correctly predicted only one in three actual offenders while flagging one in four non-offenders on July 2025 audit data. A subject is pursuing legal challenge.

Source: Liberty Investigates and WIRED; independent review by Eticas · last checked 2026-08-20

Legal basis

Not established in available sources

Oversight

Reviewed by Social Finance, which could not retest the models

A database launched in 2016 holding records on close to half a million Bristol residents, with child sexual exploitation and child criminal exploitation risk models flagging children at risk; the child criminal exploitation model was introduced in 2019. Stopped around June 2023 after council staff judged the models not fit for operational use, with recent victims of sexual offences scoring below burglary perpetrators. No records of the decision were retained. Reviewers from Social Finance could not retest the models because the source code and model variables could not be found. That combination, a discontinued predictive system with no decision record and no recoverable model, is itself the finding worth recording.

Source: Liberty Investigates · last checked 2026-08-20

Legal basis

Ministry of Justice and HMPPS policy; no dedicated statute

Oversight

Ministry of Justice has published revalidation studies of the actuarial instruments

Combines a manual assessment covering offence analysis, accommodation, education and employment, finances, relationships, lifestyle, drugs, alcohol, emotional wellbeing, thinking and behaviour, attitudes and health, with statistical calculators. OGRS 3 uses gender, previous sanctions, age at current conviction, age at first sanction and offence type to output a percentage likelihood of proven reoffending at one and two years; OGP and OVP combine that score with questionnaire sub-scores for general and violent reoffending predictions. Used on more than 1,300 people per day, and in use since 2001 with rollout across the prison and probation system between 2001 and 2005. Outputs feed sentence planning, prison categorisation and supervision decisions. A replacement, Assess Risks Needs and Strengths, is being built in-house by Ministry of Justice Digital. Concerns about accuracy and discrimination have been raised by Statewatch and in trade reporting.

Source: Statewatch; Ministry of Justice revalidation studies · last checked 2026-08-20

Legal basis

Ministry of Justice AI Action Plan for Justice; no dedicated statute identified

Oversight

None named

Digitally scans the contents of mobile phones seized from prisoners and applies AI language analysis to flag code words and messages indicating violence, escape plans or contraband smuggling for staff action. Trialled across the prison estate, having analysed over 8.6 million messages at the point of announcement in July 2025. Announced alongside a separate AI violence predictor, described as analysing factors including a prisoner's age and previous involvement in violent incidents in custody to predict individual risk and assess threat levels on wings. That second tool is recorded here as announced rather than deployed: the announcement does not state it has been trialled, and no deployment evidence has been found. Both rest on a single official source.

Source: GOV.UK, Ministry of Justice · last checked 2026-08-20

Legal basis

None stated

Oversight

HMICFRS PEEL inspection regime referenced as context; no dedicated oversight body named

The first force in England and Wales to put the capability live, announced in March 2026. Records and transcribes control room calls inside a police-controlled environment, then auto-summarises and categorises them by topic, analyses repeat-caller patterns rather than raw call counts, identifies indicators of vulnerability not captured in operator notes, and checks whether crime prevention and forensic preservation advice was given. Outputs come with plain-language explanations and operational decision-making remains with trained staff. During pilot testing the force reported the system identified 21 percent more calls containing indicators of hidden vulnerability than its previous process. That is a force-reported pilot figure, not an independently replicated result. This finding was independently surfaced by two separate research passes, which is part of why it is recorded here rather than held.

Source: National Police Chiefs' Council · last checked 2026-08-20

Legal basis

None stated

Oversight

None stated

Takes the caller's stated reason for calling 101, matches it with an AI model to a set of likely reasons, tells the caller how it understood them so they can accept or reject that reading, asks extra safeguarding questions for broad categories, and redirects non-police matters such as damage-only road traffic incidents, fly-tipping and noise complaints to councils, NHS 111 or the power-cut line before the caller joins a queue. If the model is in any doubt the call goes straight to police, and callers can always ask for a human handler. Use varies by force depending on existing telephone menus. A related programme covering AI transcription of 999 and 101 calls and linking of crime reports is backed by 16.5 million pounds. The government has stated it does not support police use of AI to answer 999 calls.

Source: GOV.UK, Home Office · last checked 2026-08-20

Legal basis

Extraction powers derive from PACE and digital extraction provisions in later legislation; the procurement notices themselves do not set out the legal basis

Oversight

The Forensic Science Regulator would be the relevant UK body but is not named in the procurement documentation

The Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime is extending a contract for 10 Cellebrite Premium tools in Metropolitan Police digital forensics hubs and at Lambeth headquarters, valued at over 5.4 million pounds. Greater Manchester Police confirmed procurement of the Cellebrite Inseyets suite, reported at 3.4 million pounds, with plans for eight regional hubs. The Foreign Office, Home Office, Ministry of Defence and at least 25 other UK forces are reported to have Cellebrite partnerships. Deployment follows a tiered model, with level one extraction at police stations and level two in force digital hubs. A scope caveat recorded deliberately: the core product is device extraction, which is digital forensics infrastructure rather than an algorithmic decision system. The newer analysis layer adds AI capabilities but has no named force deployment. Cellebrite tools were reportedly used to access two journalists' phones by the Police Service of Northern Ireland in 2018, and a journalist's phone in Serbia.

Source: UK public procurement notices (Find a Tender); trade reporting for the GMP figures · last checked 2026-08-25

Legal basis

Home Office programme; no dedicated statute

Oversight

Home Office; a public register of police AI is planned, though Statewatch notes it is expected to align with FOI exemptions and completion does not appear to be compulsory

Announced in the Police Reform White Paper of January 2026 with 115 million pounds over three years, mobilising from April 2026 and formally launched on 10 June 2026, hosted by the College of Policing with 75 million pounds over three years within a wider package of around 140 million. First-year priorities include case-file assistants, disclosure assistants, crime data integrity, rapid CCTV and digital media analysis, image identification and classification, transcription and translation, AI-assisted redaction, retail crime and tool theft matching, deepfake detection, and establishing governance for Microsoft Copilot use. It also covers a public register of police AI, a national live facial recognition capability and national data standards. Large-scale pilots involving up to ten forces are planned across 2026 and 2027, with intended national scaling from 2027. An important limit: the Home Office states that responsibility for procurement and deployment remains with chief officers. This is a coordinating and evaluating body, not a central system imposed on forces. It is recorded here because it changes how individual technologies now reach forces, not because it is itself a deployed technology.

Source: GOV.UK; National Police Chiefs' Council · last checked 2026-08-20

Legal basis

Not established in available sources

Oversight

Not established in available sources

The replacement for Action Fraud and the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, delivered as a transformation programme of around 150 million pounds and released in stages, with an interim release in November 2024 and a second in March 2025, with staff using the new platform. City of London Police originally stated that the replacement service would incorporate AI and machine learning to improve proactive fraud and cybercrime prevention and intelligence analysis. Recorded deliberately as a platform incorporating AI capabilities rather than as an AI system. It is primarily a national fraud and cyber reporting and intelligence platform, and precisely which AI models are currently operational within it is not established. Update, verified August 2026: the service has since launched publicly under the brand name Report Fraud, going live on 4 December 2025 and fully replacing Action Fraud, with a public awareness campaign from January 2026. Behind it, the Report Fraud National Crime Analysis Service (N-CAS) replaces Action Fraud's back-end analysis system serving the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau. Suppliers are Capita (contact centre and public-facing reporting technology) and PwC UK (crime and intelligence management technology underpinning the NFIB), appointed June 2023. Note a discrepancy in published cost figures worth recording: the force's own statements cite a £150m investment, while an earlier City of London Police budget reported by Recorded Future News put the estimated total cost of FCCRAS at just over £31m. The two figures may cover different scopes; neither has been reconciled publicly.

Source: City of London Police, own statements and annual report · last checked 2026-08-24

Legal basis

Home Office programme with a published privacy notice; no dedicated statute identified

Oversight

None named externally; Home Office CAID team

CAID is the UK's national hash-matching database of child sexual abuse imagery, live since Dec 2014 and used by all territorial forces, Police Scotland, PSNI and the NCA. The AI layer -- the Vigil AI CAID Classifier, built with Roke -- trains on the CAID corpus to detect previously unseen CSAM, including deepfake CSAM, and grade severity against government categories, going beyond hash-matching's ability to only catch already-known material. Roke describes it as (in the supplier's own words) the first operationally viable classifier able to both detect and grade. Home Office had invested £18.2m by 2019 with a further £1.76m on AI/fast-forensic tools. A May 2024 Home Office market notice signalled a possible move to public cloud hosting, reversing a 2020 legal opinion against cloud hosting for this data; outcome not established. This is the only documented operational police deployment of AI against synthetic/deepfake media found in this research pass.

Source: GOV.UK CAID privacy notice; Roke white paper; Computer Weekly · last checked 2026-08-24

Legal basis

Data Sharing Agreement between MoJ and GMP; no deployment authorisation identified

Oversight

None external; MoJ confirms research stage only

Originally 'Homicide Prediction Project', renamed 'Sharing Data to Improve Risk Assessment'. Began Jan 2023, using Ministry of Justice data, Police National Computer records and GMP data to build models identifying people at greatest predicted risk of committing homicide. The MoJ-GMP Data Sharing Agreement covers 100,000-500,000 people, including names, dates of birth, ethnicity and gender. A project timeline obtained by Statewatch shows the project completed Dec 2024 but not deployed; MoJ confirms research stage. Disputed: Statewatch says sensitive data including domestic abuse and self-harm information was used, covering people never convicted of any offence; officials deny this, stating only convicted persons' data was used -- both positions recorded pending resolution. Connects to this site's existing OASys entry via an MoJ finding that OASys's predictive validity was 'greater for white offenders than offenders of Asian, Black and Mixed ethnicity'. Recorded as proposed rather than operational: developed but explicitly not deployed.

Source: Statewatch (FOI documents); The Register · last checked 2026-08-24

Legal basis

Not specified in source; subject to an ICO compliance audit

Oversight

ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) -- audited as part of a five-force programme

Confirmed use of facial recognition technology via ICO proactive audit (executive summary published 2025-2026), one of five forces audited alongside Essex Police, Leicestershire Police, West Yorkshire Police and Greater Manchester Police. The ICO's blog covers both live and retrospective facial recognition without breaking down which variant each force uses -- recorded here as unspecified pending the individual audit summary, to avoid the classification error previously corrected for the Toronto/York-Peel entries. 107 recommendations were made across the five forces; all accepted or partially accepted. Four areas flagged as needing urgent attention: senior oversight/accountability/training; record-keeping on what data is used and shared; ensuring retrospective FR images come from appropriate sources and aren't over-retained; and checking systems for accuracy/bias. A final audit of the Metropolitan Police is scheduled for later in 2026.

Source: ICO, 'Facial recognition in policing: earning public trust through strong data protection governance', 18 August 2026 · last checked 2026-08-24

Legal basis

Not specified in source; subject to an ICO compliance audit

Oversight

ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) -- audited as part of a five-force programme

Confirmed use of facial recognition technology via ICO proactive audit (executive summary published 2025-2026), one of five forces audited alongside Gwent Police, Leicestershire Police, West Yorkshire Police and Greater Manchester Police. The ICO's blog covers both live and retrospective facial recognition without breaking down which variant each force uses -- recorded here as unspecified pending the individual audit summary, to avoid the classification error previously corrected for the Toronto/York-Peel entries. 107 recommendations were made across the five forces; all accepted or partially accepted. Four areas flagged as needing urgent attention: senior oversight/accountability/training; record-keeping on what data is used and shared; ensuring retrospective FR images come from appropriate sources and aren't over-retained; and checking systems for accuracy/bias. A final audit of the Metropolitan Police is scheduled for later in 2026.

Source: ICO, 'Facial recognition in policing: earning public trust through strong data protection governance', 18 August 2026 · last checked 2026-08-24

Legal basis

Not specified in source; subject to an ICO compliance audit

Oversight

ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) -- audited as part of a five-force programme

Confirmed use of facial recognition technology via ICO proactive audit (executive summary published 2025-2026), one of five forces audited alongside Gwent Police, Essex Police, West Yorkshire Police and Greater Manchester Police. The ICO's blog covers both live and retrospective facial recognition without breaking down which variant each force uses -- recorded here as unspecified pending the individual audit summary, to avoid the classification error previously corrected for the Toronto/York-Peel entries. 107 recommendations were made across the five forces; all accepted or partially accepted. Four areas flagged as needing urgent attention: senior oversight/accountability/training; record-keeping on what data is used and shared; ensuring retrospective FR images come from appropriate sources and aren't over-retained; and checking systems for accuracy/bias. A final audit of the Metropolitan Police is scheduled for later in 2026.

Source: ICO, 'Facial recognition in policing: earning public trust through strong data protection governance', 18 August 2026 · last checked 2026-08-24

Legal basis

Not specified in source; subject to an ICO compliance audit

Oversight

ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) -- audited as part of a five-force programme

Confirmed use of facial recognition technology via ICO proactive audit (executive summary published 2025-2026), one of five forces audited alongside Gwent Police, Essex Police, Leicestershire Police and Greater Manchester Police. The ICO's blog covers both live and retrospective facial recognition without breaking down which variant each force uses -- recorded here as unspecified pending the individual audit summary, to avoid the classification error previously corrected for the Toronto/York-Peel entries. 107 recommendations were made across the five forces; all accepted or partially accepted. Four areas flagged as needing urgent attention: senior oversight/accountability/training; record-keeping on what data is used and shared; ensuring retrospective FR images come from appropriate sources and aren't over-retained; and checking systems for accuracy/bias. A final audit of the Metropolitan Police is scheduled for later in 2026.

Source: ICO, 'Facial recognition in policing: earning public trust through strong data protection governance', 18 August 2026 · last checked 2026-08-24

Legal basis

Not specified in source; subject to an ICO compliance audit

Oversight

ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) -- audited as part of a five-force programme

Confirmed use of facial recognition technology via ICO proactive audit (executive summary published 2025-2026), one of five forces audited alongside Gwent Police, Essex Police, Leicestershire Police and West Yorkshire Police. The ICO's blog covers both live and retrospective facial recognition without breaking down which variant each force uses -- recorded here as unspecified pending the individual audit summary, to avoid the classification error previously corrected for the Toronto/York-Peel entries. 107 recommendations were made across the five forces; all accepted or partially accepted. Four areas flagged as needing urgent attention: senior oversight/accountability/training; record-keeping on what data is used and shared; ensuring retrospective FR images come from appropriate sources and aren't over-retained; and checking systems for accuracy/bias. A final audit of the Metropolitan Police is scheduled for later in 2026.

Source: ICO, 'Facial recognition in policing: earning public trust through strong data protection governance', 18 August 2026 · last checked 2026-08-24

Legal basis

None yet; under consideration

Oversight

Scottish Biometrics Commissioner; Scottish Police Authority

The Scottish Police Authority launched a National Conversation in 2024 on the potential use of live facial recognition by Police Scotland. The ICO has been engaging with Police Scotland and the SPA throughout and will continue to input as proposals develop, and separately responded in June 2026 to a Scottish Government consultation reviewing the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner's functions. The ICO's own August 2026 audit statement covers England and Wales 'where LFR is currently in use', which is a citable statement that LFR is not currently operational in Scotland. Scotland is unusual among tracker entries in having a named biometrics-specific oversight body already in statute.

Source: ICO, 18 August 2026 statement · last checked 2026-08-24

Legal basis

None yet; the ICO states it is 'feeding into the Northern Ireland Justice Bill'

Oversight

None named yet

No confirmed operational facial recognition use in Northern Ireland. The ICO's August 2026 statement says it is feeding into the Northern Ireland Justice Bill, and separately says its audit findings will be shared with the PSNI alongside Police Scotland. Recorded as proposed on the strength of the Justice Bill reference; the underlying legislative content was not established in this research pass.

Source: ICO, 18 August 2026 statement · last checked 2026-08-24