Police Service of Northern Ireland

The Irish News reported on 1 March 2026 that the Police Service of Northern Ireland had carried out 2,153 searches using the facial matching facility of the Police National Database (PND), the Home Office-run intelligence-sharing system, since November 2021, according to a written answer from the Justice Minister, Naomi Long, to Gerry Carroll MLA. The force told the paper that "the only facial recognition capability" it uses is "the well-established retrospective facial search function available via the Police National Database", that searching is "a manual process conducted under strict oversight and audit", and that it accounts for 0.6 per cent of all PND facial searches by UK police in the last 12 months. It said a Facial Recognition Board was established to govern its use of facial recognition, and that the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commissioner and the Policing Board's human rights advisers have attended it. The paper recalls a 2012 High Court ruling that the automatic, indefinite retention of custody photographs of people never charged or later acquitted was an unlawful interference with private life, and reports Mr Carroll's criticism that the use is "worryingly opaque". The answer as reported does not say when the force first used the facility, so no start year is given. At the Policing Board on 5 March 2026 a member, Deirdre Hargey MLA, asked how confident the force was that images used for retrospective facial recognition do not fall under a previous court decision; the answer is published only as video. The force does not use live facial recognition: IDTechWire reported on 4 February 2026 that it "does not currently use live facial recognition" and is only exploring whether it could work operationally in Northern Ireland.