Met to extend live facial recognition to West End

Britain's biggest police force is expanding its use of static live facial recognition cameras to London's West End and Soho.

The devices were used during a six-month pilot in Croydon, south London, between October 2025 and last month, which saw 173 people arrested including a woman who had been wanted for more than 20 years.

The static cameras - attached to street furniture and monitored remotely - are now set to be deployed in central London by the end of the year and will be rolled out to other parts of the capital next year.

Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said the cameras were "one of the most revolutionary technology advances in policing", but critics called the plans "very troubling".

Human rights organisation Liberty said the force should pause its use of the technology until a legal framework is put in place to govern its use.

During the Croydon pilot, the Met said more than 470,000 people walked past the camera, generating one false alert for which the person was spoken to by officers and then allowed to leave.

Since the start of 2024, the force has arrested more than 2,000 people using live facial recognition cameras.

Announcing the expansion of their use, the commissioner said: "Public confidence in this is clear – around 80% of Londoners support its use. That backing reflects a simple truth: it works.

"We have already seen the impact in Croydon, where a six-month pilot delivered over 170 arrests, a reduction in crime and a significant fall in violence against women and girls.

"All these results with only one false alert among hundreds of thousands of people.

"The technology supports officers to target wanted criminals and registered sex offenders. Crucially it is supporting officers – not replacing them. Now we're taking that capability further."

Akiko Hart, director at Liberty, branded the latest rollout "very troubling" and said it "represents a major escalation in the use of this technology".

She said: "Robust safeguards, oversight and transparency on the use of facial recognition cameras should have been in place before they were ever introduced to our city centres and high streets.

"To reach the level of fixed cameras across the capital before we even have a law in place is deeply concerning.

"Until this is in place the Metropolitan Police should pause their use of the technology, not expand it."

By Sonja Jessup, Home Affairs Correspondent, BBC London

It was last summer, during a visit highlighting crime fighting in the West End, that the Met commissioner told me about plans to double its use of live facial recognition technology.

"We need to get cleverer, because we're a smaller organisation," he explained.

He was referring to the "shrinking" police force, which is losing officers and staff, while at the same time under pressure to cut crimes such as shoplifting, mobile phone theft and violence against women in hotspot areas.

Fast forward a year and the Met's confidence in the technology has been boosted, both by its win over a legal challenge at the High Court and the results of the Croydon pilot using the static cameras, which it is now preparing to roll out.

But they'll face opposition, including from civil rights and privacy groups, and have urged the government not to "over-regulate" its use as ministers consider more specific legislation, following a public consultation.

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