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<\/a><\/p>\nAutomated facial recognition (AFR) is the state\u2019s latest, and most invasive, surveillance technology.<\/span><\/p>\n Since 2015, three police forces \u2013 South Wales, Metropolitan and Leicestershire \u2013 have made use of AFR in controversial live trials. Now, South Wales Police have been taken to court by office worker Ed Bridges, who started a crowdfunding campaign when he felt his privacy had been violated by AFR.<\/span><\/p>\n Bridges\u2019 legal challenge has been backed by civil-rights organisation Liberty, which argues that the indiscriminate deployment of AFR is equivalent to taking DNA samples or fingerprints without consent. According to Liberty, there are no legal grounds for scanning thousands of innocent people in this way. It also claims the technology discriminates against black people, whose faces are disproportionately flagged by mistake, meaning they are more likely to be stopped by\u00a0police<\/strong><\/span><\/a> unfairly.<\/span><\/p>\n In\u00a0London<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, AFR has been put on hold while the Metropolitan Police carries out a review. The Met is also facing a legal challenge of its own from Big Brother Watch, another civil-liberties group. Director Silkie Carlo, a vocal critic of AFR since its inception, told\u00a0spiked<\/em>: \u2018People are right to be concerned when they can see us moving towards a police state. The result of this technology is that the normal relationship between innocence and suspicion has been inverted.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n One camera, placed in a busy, inner-city location, can scan the faces of up to 18,000 pedestrians per minute, automatically logging the features of anyone unlucky enough to walk past. A computer immediately checks these faces against a database of wanted mugs and lets nearby officers know if there\u2019s a match.<\/span><\/p>\n I have\u00a0previously warned on\u00a0spiked<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0against the illiberal use of this technology, and the flaws inherent in AFR policing have since become even clearer. Around 50 deployments have taken place so far in Wales alone, including during the Champions League final in Cardiff in June 2017. On that occasion, the cameras scanned 2,470 people \u2013 92 per cent of whom were wrongly identified as criminals.<\/span><\/p>\n The trials do not exactly inspire confidence in the accuracy of this technology. But even if AFR worked perfectly, its use would still violate our right to privacy and turn us all into suspects. In previous live AFR trials, it was unclear what would happen to members of the public who refuse to be scanned. Well, now we know: anyone who doesn\u2019t consent to being turned into a walking ID-card will be treated like a criminal.<\/span><\/p>\n