United Kingdom, Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire Police

Live Facial Recognition

TrialOfficial publicationPAI-61216CBC

Body
Northamptonshire Police
Country
United Kingdom
Area
Northamptonshire
Technology
Live Facial Recognition
Supplier
Not stated in the source
Status
Trial
Being tested in live conditions under a time-limited pilot or trial.
Stage
In use now
Since
July 2023
Legal basis
Not stated in the source
Oversight
Not stated in the source
Evidence
Official publication
Police force, government department or public body publication
Source
Northamptonshire Police live facial recognition page and deployment register
Last checked
Record code
PAI-61216CBC

Notes

Established by Northamptonshire Police's own live facial recognition page and the deployment register it publishes, both read on 9 September 2026. The force's own wording is that it "is trialling the use of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology for the purposes of preventing and detecting crime and protecting the public", which is why the status is recorded as trial rather than operational. The published register lists deployments from 8 July 2023 onwards. The first six are at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone across 2023, 2024 and 2025, with watchlists ranging from 778 to 3,949 and no alerts recorded at any of them. Town centre deployments begin on 28 November 2025 at Abington Street and Fish Street in Northampton, with a watchlist of 3,317, eight alerts of which seven were true and one false, and three arrests. Further deployments follow in Kettering, Wellingborough, Corby, Northampton and Daventry, the most recent listed being 10 July 2026 at Foundry Place and Bowen Square in Daventry. The register was read twice in this run and gave the same first and last rows both times. Local reporting by the Northampton Chronicle & Echo on 10 December 2025 adds that seven arrests followed the first four town centre deployments and that the van used was loaned from Bedfordshire Police; that is secondary reporting, not a force document, and is recorded here as such. Vendor, legal basis and oversight are deliberately left empty. The force page links a legal mandate document, a data protection impact assessment, an equality and wellbeing impact assessment and a deployment policy, but states none of their contents on the page itself and names no supplier, and none of those documents was read in this run.

Live Facial Recognition elsewhere in United Kingdom

See them in the tracker
Live Facial Recognition elsewhere in United Kingdom
DeploymentCountrySupplierSinceStatusChecked
British Transport PoliceLive Facial Recognition United KingdomLondon rail and Underground network NEC (NeoFace M40) 2026 Trial
Metropolitan PoliceLive Facial Recognition United KingdomLondon NEC (NeoFace) 2020 Operational
South Wales PoliceLive Facial Recognition United KingdomWales NEC (NeoFace) 2017 Operational
Essex PoliceLive Facial Recognition United KingdomForce area Corsight AI (Apollo 4), with Digital Barriers 2024 Operational
West Yorkshire PoliceLive and Retrospective Facial Recognition United KingdomForce area Not specified in source 2025 Operational
Greater Manchester PoliceLive and Retrospective Facial Recognition United KingdomForce area Not specified in source 2025 Operational
Police ScotlandLive Facial Recognition United KingdomScotland Not applicable -- not yet deployed 2024 Proposed
Merseyside PoliceLive Facial Recognition United KingdomMerseyside, including Southport and Birkenhead town centres — 2025 Operational
Thames Valley PoliceLive Facial Recognition United KingdomThames Valley, first deployed in Oxford city centre — 2025 Operational
Bedfordshire PoliceLive Facial Recognition United KingdomBedfordshire NEC (NeoFace Watch), according to NEC 2025 Operational
Surrey PoliceLive Facial Recognition United KingdomSurrey NEC Software 2025 Operational
Sussex PoliceLive Facial Recognition United KingdomSussex NEC Software 2025 Operational