🔗 Share this article British Law Enforcement Agencies Campaign to Employ Discriminatory Facial Recognition Technology Police forces across the UK successfully lobbied to use a facial recognition system known to be discriminatory against women, young people, and members of ethnic minority groups, following complaints that a more accurate version produced a reduced number of investigative leads. The Technology in Practice British police utilize the police national database (PND) to carry out searches using historical face recognition. This process involves comparing a reference photograph of a person of interest against a repository of more than 19 million custody photos to identify potential matches. Admitted Bias The Home Office conceded last week that the system was flawed. This admission followed a review by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) determined it misidentified people of Black and Asian heritage and women at much greater frequency than white men. The ministry stated it “took steps on the findings”. “This raises the issue of whether facial recognition only becomes effective if users tolerate biases in race and sex. Convenience is a weak argument for disregarding fundamental rights.” Long-Standing Problem Internal documents show that this bias has been recognized for more than a year. Furthermore, police forces argued to overturn an initial decision that was intended to mitigate the problem. Senior officers were notified of the algorithmic discrimination in September 2024. The Home Office-commissioned NPL review found the system was had a higher probability to suggest incorrect matches for images depicting females, individuals of Black ethnicity, and those aged 40 and under. A Policy U-Turn In response, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) mandated that the accuracy setting required for potential matches be raised to a point where the bias was greatly diminished. However, this decision was reversed the next month after forces complained that the adjusted system was generating fewer “useful lines of inquiry”. NPCC documents show the higher threshold cut the proportion of searches resulting in potential matches from over half to a mere 14%. Profound Inequalities Although the Home Office and NPCC refused to say what setting is now in operation, the latest NPL study discovered the system could produce false positives for women of Black heritage almost 100 times more frequently than for Caucasian women at specific configurations. The Home Office commented on these findings: “Our evaluation identified that in a specific scenarios the software is has a greater tendency to incorrectly include some demographic groups in its search results.” Balancing Utility and Fairness Describing the effect of the temporary raise to the system's confidence threshold, the NPCC documents note: “This adjustment greatly lessens the effect of discrimination across protected characteristics of race, age and sex but had a significant negative impact on operational effectiveness”. The papers add that forces complained that “a previously useful tool returned results of questionable value”. Broader Rollout Plans Meanwhile, the UK administration has launched a two-and-a-half-month public review on its proposals to widen the use of facial recognition technology. The minister for police the relevant minister has labeled the tool as the “most significant advance since genetic fingerprinting”. Criticism from Advisors and Monitors The chair of a police oversight board, chair of the independent scrutiny and oversight board for the police race action plan, commented: “We observed very little consideration through race action plan meetings of the facial recognition rollout despite obvious cross-over with the plan’s concerns. “These revelations demonstrate yet again that the anti-racism commitments policing has undertaken via the race action plan are not being translated into wider practice. Our reports have warned that new technologies are being rolled out in a context where racial disparities, inadequate oversight and poor data collection continue to exist. “All deployment of facial recognition must meet strict national standards, be subject to external review, and prove it diminishes rather than exacerbates ethnic bias.” Official Statement A Home Office spokesperson stated: “We takes the conclusions of the study seriously and we have already taken action. A new algorithm has been externally evaluated and acquired, which has no statistically significant bias. It will be trialled in the coming months and will be subject to evaluation. “Our priority is ensuring public safety. This revolutionary tool will assist police to put criminals and rapists behind bars. There is officer review in each stage of the process and no further action would be pursued without trained officers meticulously examining the output.”