Essex Police Pause Facial Recognition, But Why Was It Rolled Out at All?

Essex Police has paused its use of live facial recognition after a Cambridge study found the system was statistically more likely to correctly identify black people than other ethnic groups, and more likely to identify men than women. 

The force also flaunted worrying figures: around 1.3 million faces were scanned between August 2024 and February 2025, producing 48 arrests and “only one mistaken intervention.” That is being presented as reassurance. 

It should be read as evidence of how quickly mass biometric monitoring is being normalised in Britain. Millions of people were scanned in public before the public had any clear answer to a basic question: what level of proof was ever produced to justify deploying this in the first place?...<<<Read More>>>...