Police force to trial facial recognition technology

Two vans will be in Ipswich town centre on Saturday, 22 February

A police force is to trial live facial recognition (LFR) technology in a town centre for a day to find criminals and prevent crime.

Suffolk Police said two vans and equipment, borrowed from Essex Police, will be in Ipswich on Saturday, 22 February.

The force said it was "well-acquainted to embracing innovative technology to protect the public from serious harm".

The kit would only be used to find criminals and anyone who they are not looking for will have their image deleted immediately.

The equipment, borrowed from a neighbouring police force, was first used in Essex in August 2024

Assistant Chief Constable Eamonn Bridger said: "This technology has been proven elsewhere to be an effective tactic for locating and arresting suspects that are wanted for serious offences."

He said the force would only be looking for individuals who have committed serious offences and added: "It is important that we provide insight around the trial of this equipment and tactics."

The technology compares live camera feeds of faces against a predetermined database or "watch list" of people of interest and scanning takes less than a minute.

"If you are in a location where LFR is being deployed and you are not one of the specific people we're trying to locate, your image will be immediately and automatically deleted", Mr Bridger said.

"It's an effective way of finding people we want to speak to and keeping the public safe.

"This technology can save time and effort of our officers, leaving them able to do other work to protect and help the public."

Suffolk Police and Crime Commissioner Tim Passmore said: "This technology has huge potential to bring criminals to justice and to prevent crime."

He said where it had been trialled it had a "very positive impact on reducing levels of crime and improving detection rates".