The Information Commissioner’s Office has today published the findings of an audit of the use of Facial Recognition Technology by South Wales Police and Gwent Police.
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Chief Superintendent Tim Morgan, of the joint South Wales and Gwent digital services department, said:
“The level of oversight and independent scrutiny of facial recognition technology means that we are now in a stronger position than ever before to be able to demonstrate to the communities of South Wales and Gwent that our use of the technology is fair, legitimate, ethical and proportionate.
“We welcome the work of the Information Commissioner’s Office audit which provides us with independent assurance of the extent to which both forces are complying with data protection legislation. The audit covered the use of live facial recognition in South Wales, as well as retrospective and operator-initiated facial recognition in both forces.
“We fully understand the concerns which are raised about the use of facial recognition technology which is why we use any new technology ethically and spend time and effort making sure it’s deployed in line with all legislation and guidance. Our priority is to keep the public safe and this technology continues to help us to bring offenders to justice and protect the public.
“Since a legal challenge of the use of live facial recognition technology by South Wales Police there has been the development of the Surveillance Camera Commissioner’s Code of Practice and the College of Policing Authorised Professional Practice which sets out our obligations in the use of live facial recognition. We welcome this guidance and will consistently adhere to both.
“A series of trial deployments and the independent testing and evaluation of data by the National Physical Laboratory confirmed that the technology does not discriminate on the grounds of gender, age or race, based on the responsible way in which facial recognition is used by South Wales Police which enabled us to better understand the technology and use the optimum conditions whereby live facial recognition can operate without any identifiable bias towards gender, age or race. This is also the case for retrospective and operator initiated facial recognition.
“It is important to remember that use of this has never resulted in a wrongful arrest in South Wales and there have been no false alerts for several years as the technology and our understanding has evolved.”
South Wales Police uses facial recognition technology to prevent and detect crime and help protect the vulnerable.
Facial recognition is a technology capable of comparing a human face from a digital image against a database of faces.
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