South Wales Police

The Home Office factsheet states: "South Wales Police and Gwent Police are using the technology." It gives no start date.

Update, November 2026. The joint South Wales Police and Gwent Police policy document for the overt use of operator-initiated facial recognition (version 1.1, dated 14 December 2024, review date 14 December 2025) describes an app on a police-issued mobile phone that compares a photograph taken by the officer with an image reference database, and says the forces intend to run a force-wide pilot that "will last 12 months". It says the image reference database holds custody images and the forces' images of missing persons. Police Professional (13 December 2024) reported that an earlier pilot with 70 South Wales officers ran from December 2021 to March 2022. It does not name a supplier or give start and end dates. The Information Commissioner's Office executive summary (August 2025) records that it observed the operator-initiated pilot but did not rate it formally, and gave feedback to the forces. Police Professional reported on 15 July 2025 that more than 500 officers had been trained and gave early results of 50 searches and ten arrests in South Wales and six completed uses in Gwent, which are the forces' own figures. The Home Office factsheet of December 2025 says both forces 'are using the technology'. No source read says whether the pilot ended or was made permanent, so the status of 'operational' rests on the factsheet wording and may in fact be a continuing pilot; it is left unchanged pending a source that settles it.