Police to roll out lamppost-mounted facial recognition cameras across London
Key Points
- Live Facial Recognition (LFR) cameras mounted to lampposts and other infrastructure are now set to roll out across London, focusing on high-footfall areas.
- After a successful pilot scheme of static LFR cameras in Croydon, the Met have been given the green light to roll out the cameras across the city.
- In the Croydon pilot, LFR cameras led to an arrest being made every 34 minutes during operation, with only one false positive amid more than 400,000 faces analysed.
- Commissioner Mark Rowley cited public support for the technology and highlighted its positive impact on crime where deployed.
The Metropolitan Police will roll out static-mounted Live Facial Recognition (LFR) across London to tackle high-crime areas.
LFR technology uses artificial intelligence (AI) to compare a live camera feed of faces against a predetermined watchlist in real time. It is used to locate and identify people who are of interest by generating an alert when a match is found.
In a speech on Wednesday 23 June, Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley announced the plan to rollout the cameras across London, beginning with the introduction of static cameras across the West End and Soho by the end of this year.
Police will be able to move the cameras around, repositioning them to focus on crime hotspots in the city.
Unlike most previous LFR deployments, these static cameras do not require a dedicated van to house the cameras and the computers required to operate them. Instead, they can be attached to existing infrastructure such as street poles and lampposts, making them easier to deploy and move around the city.
This approach was recently trialed in a pilot scheme in Croydon, where lamppost-mounted cameras led to the arrest of more than 170 people. While the cameras were being operated during this pilot, they led to an arrest being made every 34 minutes.
“Public confidence in [facial recognition technology] is clear – around 80% of Londoners support its use. That backing reflects a simple truth: it works,” Rowley said.
“We have already seen the impact in Croydon, where a six-month pilot delivered over 170 arrests, a reduction in crime, and a significant fall in violence against women and girls.”
“All these results with only one false alert among hundreds of thousands of people,” he said.
The rollout of static LFR cameras to Soho and the West End would help tackle crime in some of London’s high-footfall areas, he said.
Previously, the powers of the police to deploy static LFR cameras were limited to the Croydon pilot, but a judicial review in April has now empowered them to roll out the technology across London.
The Met maintains that each LFR deployment uses a bespoke, intelligence-led watchlist created no more than 24 hours beforehand, which is then deleted immediately after the deployment concludes.
