Australia, Perth and Fremantle
Western Australia Police
Live Facial Recognition, supplied by NEC (NeoFace M40)
TrialOfficial publicationPAI-56E1E35C
- Body
- Western Australia Police
- Country
- Australia
- Area
- Perth and Fremantle
- Technology
- Live Facial Recognition
- Supplier
- NEC (NeoFace M40)
- Status
- Trial
Being tested in live conditions under a time-limited pilot or trial. - Stage
- In use now
- Since
- 2026
- Legal basis
- No national biometric surveillance framework exists in Australia. Western Australia's Privacy and Responsible Information Sharing Act 2024 is the first Australian law directly governing personal information in automated decision-making.
- Oversight
- State privacy watchdog was not consulted before the trial launched, according to advocacy groups
- Evidence
- Official publication
Police force, government department or public body publication - Source
- Government of Western Australia, Overt live facial recognition trial update (22 September 2026, updated 6 October 2026)
- Last checked
- Record code
PAI-56E1E35C
Notes
Western Australia Police became the first Australian law enforcement agency to use live facial recognition on the public when its five-month trial began on 22 June 2026, using NEC's NeoFace M40 from cameras mounted on marked police vans in Perth and Fremantle.
Figures from the first week of the trial: more than 130,000 faces scanned, generating 33 alerts, leading to 18 arrests and two false alerts.
Those numbers are worth reading in both directions. Two false alerts against 130,000 faces is a low error rate. It is also 130,000 people whose faces were converted to biometric templates in seven days so that 18 arrests could be made, and whether that ratio is proportionate is a policy question rather than a technical one that a more accurate algorithm resolves.
Associate Professor Jake Goldenfein of Melbourne Law School has noted the established concern that these systems have historically performed less accurately for people of colour and for women, and least accurately for women of colour, because of the composition of the data the algorithms were trained on. WA Police has pointed to National Physical Laboratory testing of the NEC algorithm in selecting the technology.
The trial has been criticised by privacy experts and legal advocates, and is being watched by other Australian forces as a precedent.
Update, October 2026. The Government of Western Australia published results for the first three months from the trial start on 22 June 2026: 77 deployments at 36 metropolitan and regional locations, 905,117 faces scanned, 209 alerts of which 8 were incorrect, 79 arrests including 36 for outstanding warrants, and 114 registered sex offenders identified and engaged. The first regional deployment was at Geraldton on 11 and 12 September 2026. The page does not say whether the trial will be extended or made permanent.