Facial recognition vans 'not about surveillance'

Live facial recognition vans with special cameras and software will be launched in Surrey and Sussex in a Home Office-funded trial

Vans equipped with facial recognition technology are set to be rolled out on streets in Sussex and Surrey.

Two vans fitted with cameras which feed into specialist software will aim to catch criminals, suspects, and those wanted on recall to prison across the counties.

The rollout comes amid opposition from politicians and campaign groups, some of whom call the technology "incredibly intrusive" and "racially biased".

Speaking at Sussex Police headquarters in Lewes, police and crime commissioner Katy Bourne said: "This is not about surveillance, this is about safeguarding."

She added: "If this takes our most dangerous offenders off the streets, that's got to be a good thing."

In Guildford, Surrey Police Ch Insp Andy Hill added: "We've taken a lot of learning from other forces who have been ahead of us with it.

"The software itself has been subject to a lot of testing and development and we are confident in its accuracy."

How does live facial recognition work?

Cameras in the van provide officers with live footage and monitor police databases for criminals or suspects.

The CCTV cameras will continuously run while the van is in operation.

Cameras only detect people on Sussex and Surrey Police watch lists, including people on court orders, those wanted on recall to prison, or suspects in criminal investigations.

Police officers sitting inside the van will monitor the live CCTV feeds for matches to the software

"If someone walks past our van and they're on our watch list, that will trigger an alert inside the van and let us know that we need to go up and speak to those people," explained Sussex Police's Ch Insp Jim Loader.

Anyone not on a watch list will have their face blurred on the police feed and their images will be deleted immediately, the forces said.

Mr Hill added that any alert the software generates will be subject to human review to confirm that it is a match.

The Home Office is funding the facial recognition scheme in Sussex and Surrey for the next five years.

Sussex Police Ch Insp Jim Loader says the cameras will speed up the time it takes to identify and catch criminals

Sian Berry, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, criticised the technology as "incredibly intrusive" and called for greater debate about its use before it was rolled out more broadly.

Other campaign groups have raised concerns that the cameras may reinforce racial biases, as some artificial intelligence cannot distinguish between black and Asian faces.

Matthew Johnson, chief executive of campaign group Race on the Agenda, said: "It hasn't been designed with black and brown communities in mind.

"It makes me feel more unsafe and less secure, and that my privacy rights can be breached at any point just going about my day."

Sussex Police Det Ch Supt Carwyn Hughes said their technology held "no statistical risk" of racial or gender bias, adding it was "incredibly important" to the force to prevent any profiling.

Mr Hill said he was "confident it minimises any false alerts".