FACIAL RECOGNITION CONSULTATION: Say NO to the Panopticon

Please edit the template below to add your own thoughts. Deadline: 12 Feb.

Title

First name *

Last name *

Your email *

Subject

Dear Sir or Madam,Response to: Consultation on a New Legal Framework for Law Enforcement Use of Biometrics, Facial Recognition and Similar TechnologiesI am writing to respond to the Home Office consultation on a proposed new legal framework for law enforcement use of biometric technologies, including live facial recognition.At the outset, I wish to place on record my horror at the Home Secretary’s recently reported statement that her vision for policing involves a “panopticon”. This is a deeply troubling - if revealing - description. A panopticon is a model of total surveillance, designed to condition people into permanent self-censorship. It is fundamentally incompatible with a liberal democracy and with the British tradition of policing by consent.This consultation proceeds on the assumption that the public has already consented to the introduction of a nationwide biometric surveillance system. That assumption is false. No such democratic consent has been sought or given. There has been no meaningful public debate about transforming Britain into a biometric surveillance society.The central issue is therefore not how such a system should be regulated, but whether it should exist at all. I strongly submit that it should not.The UK is supposed to be a liberal democracy. Our system of justice is founded on core principles including:• the presumption of innocence • policing by consent • the right to privacy • freedom of movement, expression and assembly • explicit consent for the use of biometric dataLive facial recognition and mass biometric surveillance overturn these principles. They treat the entire population as potential suspects and subject innocent people to continuous automated identity checks in public space. This represents a fundamental shift in the relationship between citizen and state.Biometric data is the most personal and sensitive form of data that exists. Its automatic collection and processing in public space is incompatible with the UK GDPR requirement that biometric data be processed only with explicit, informed, and freely given consent, subject to strict necessity and proportionality.A society in which the state routinely tracks and identifies people as they go about their daily lives is not a free society. History shows that societies built on mass surveillance do not end well. Mass surveillance undermines trust in government, chills free expression, suppresses lawful protest, and erodes the legitimacy of policing.It is also notable that the UK is increasingly isolated among liberal democracies. Multiple US jurisdictions have restricted or banned police use of facial recognition. The EU AI Act now broadly prohibits the use of live facial recognition by law enforcement. Britain is moving in the opposite direction.Response to Consultation QuestionsQ1 — To what extent do you agree that a new legal framework should apply to all use of biometric technologies by law enforcement?Disagree.I reject the premise of this question. The appropriate response is not to legalise and normalise biometric surveillance through a new framework, but to prohibit it.The use of live facial recognition creates a system of indiscriminate mass surveillance by design. It ends anonymity in public space and replaces targeted policing with population-level monitoring. This overturns the presumption of innocence and fundamentally alters the character of British society.The only appropriate course of action is to ban live facial recognition in primary legislation.Q2 — Should a legal framework apply to inferential technology such as emotion recognition?Emotion recognition technology is in its infancy and widely regarded as scientifically unreliable. Facial expressions and body language are not universal indicators of emotion or intent. Legislating in advance to authorise such technology would be deeply irresponsible and would create a foundation for new injustices, abuses of power, and automated discrimination.No democratic society should permit the state to algorithmically infer emotions, intentions or mental states from a person’s face or body.Q3 — Should a legal framework apply to object recognition (clothing, bags, vehicles)?Object recognition technology creates a serious risk of misidentification. Items such as bags, clothing and vehicles are frequently shared or borrowed. Using such systems would undermine the principle of reasonable suspicion and create a policing environment ripe for error and injustice.Q4 — Should the framework be flexible to allow new technologies to be added in future?No. Parliament should not be asked to grant open-ended future permission for technologies that do not yet exist or are not yet understood. Consent cannot be given in advance for unknown technologies.Granting law enforcement a permanent technological blank cheque would be profoundly undemocratic.Q5 — Should the framework apply only to law enforcement use for law enforcement purposes?British policing derives its legitimacy from the consent of the public. The police exist to enforce the law in a democratic society, not to override democratic principles.Granting sweeping biometric surveillance powers will further erode public trust, which is already at historic lows.Q6 — What other factors are relevant when assessing interference with privacy?The introduction of biometric mass surveillance is inherently incompatible with the right to privacy. It also undermines:• the presumption of innocence • freedom of movement • freedom of association • the right to go about daily life without state monitoringThe Home Office itself acknowledges that live facial recognition inevitably captures and processes the biometric data of innocent people who are not under investigation. This alone should be sufficient to rule it out.Q7 — What factors are relevant when assessing interference with other rights?The right to protest and assemble is fundamental to British democracy. In recent years those rights have already been curtailed. The addition of biometric surveillance would further chill lawful protest and deter citizens from exercising their democratic freedoms.A society in which people fear being identified, tracked and logged at demonstrations is not a free society.Q8 & Q9 — Should seriousness of harm determine use?Recent years have shown an alarming expansion in subjective and loosely defined notions of “harm”, leading to wrongful arrests and police visits over lawful speech.In that context, granting law enforcement automated biometric powers based on discretionary harm assessments is extremely dangerous.Q10 & Q11 — Should there be senior or independent authorisation?No authorisation regime can make mass biometric surveillance compatible with democratic principles. The issue is not authorisation — it is prohibition.Q12 & Q13 — Should police be allowed to search other government databases?No. This would violate the core GDPR principle of purpose limitation and informed consent. Data provided for passports, driving licences or immigration purposes must not be repurposed for policing surveillance.Interoperable biometric databases would also create severe security risks, as recent failures of government digital infrastructure demonstrate.Oversight BodySince the appropriate policy is prohibition, not regulation, there is no need for an oversight body.Core Policy PositionI urge the Government to adopt the following position in primary legislation:• Live facial recognition must be prohibited. It is an indiscriminate surveillance tool by design with the capacity to end anonymity in public space. It has no place on British streets, shops or transport systems.• Operator-initiated facial recognition must be prohibited. Allowing officers to scan individuals at will creates unchecked discretionary surveillance.• Retrospective facial recognition should only be permitted under strict primary legislation, limited to lawfully held custody images, subject to strict necessity, proportionality, and judicial safeguards.ConclusionThe direction of travel implied by this consultation — towards a permanent biometric surveillance infrastructure — represents a radical departure from British democratic traditions.A “panopticon society” is not compatible with freedom, consent-based policing, or the rule of law. The public has not consented to it. Parliament has not authorised it. And it should not be built.The Government should follow the example of other liberal democracies and prohibit live facial recognition in primary legislation.

To show you're an actual person, what is 2 + 4 ? *

Yes - keep me in touch with Together's campaigning on this and other issues

Data will be processed by Organic Campaigns: Privacy policy. Acknowledgements