London facial-recognition pilot extended despite no arrests from alerts

The British Transport Police’s live facial-recognition (LFR) trial, funded at more than £320,000 and consuming nearly 100 officer hours, scanned over 500,000 faces between February and July. After the initial phase, the programme has been extended for four months and broadened to London Underground stations. During the extension, three alerts correctly identified individuals adhering to sexual-harm prevention orders, but the only watchlist match was later deemed a false positive.

Experts such as Fraser Sampson of Facewatch note that success in retail settings does not translate to public transport, where the system only flags people already on police watchlists. Transport for London says the technology targets high-risk stations to combat violence against women and girls. Human-rights officials and Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy have called for a suspension of the rollout until stronger safeguards are in place.