Police: Facial Recognition Technology

Baroness Manzoor Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manzoor (Con)]

My Lords, this is an important tool, but the reality is that recently, there have been reports in the press about two women who were stopped by the police for shoplifting, through the use of facial recognition technology. There is an issue here about the algorithms used in facial recognition technology, and inequality and accessibility, particularly in relation to black and ethnic minority people, who are more likely to be misjudged as a result of this technology.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

There has been some discussion of the algorithms and their use. There were discussions with South Wales Police in particular, who were dealing with that issue. Those discussions resulted in the National Physical Laboratory testing the algorithm used by South Wales Police, and it found no statistically significant difference in performance on either gender or race. However, it is for those very reasons that the Home Secretary wants to examine the legal framework and, for the reasons that my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti mentioned, to make sure that there is clarity and oversight, and that the plethora of organisations I mentioned at the start of this Question examine this in a way that makes for effective oversight and clarity for police forces.