Overview
- Essex Police paused live facial recognition after a University of Cambridge field test of 188 actors found watchlist hits were about 50% and Black participants were statistically more likely to be correctly identified than others.
- The Information Commissioner’s Office recorded the pause and advised Essex Police to further understand and reduce risks before continuing deployments.
- Essex Police say they worked with the software provider, sought further academic assessment, revised policies, and are now confident to restart while monitoring for bias.
- Opposition MPs, including Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Liberal Democrat spokespeople, called for a national pause, primary legislation, and stronger safeguards, even as the Home Office plans to expand LFR vans to 50 across England and Wales.
- Separate evidence offers a mixed picture, with the National Physical Laboratory reporting very low false positive rates under certain conditions, while a new Norwich deployment scanned about 50,000 faces and yielded one wanted suspect identified.