Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has issued guidance on using experimental methods in conjunction with facial recognition.

The Home Office has not issued specific guidance. Police use of facial recognition and similar technologies is currently governed by a legal framework that includes data protection, equality and human rights laws, national guidance, a code of practice and force level policies. The College of Policing has also published guidance and an Authorised Professional Practice setting out police forces use new technology. However, we intend to bring forward a new legal framework to provide clearer, more specific rules.

The Government’s aim is that a new legal framework will ensure all police forces across the country can use facial recognition and similar technologies with greater confidence, and that their uses and limits are clear to the public.

Last year, we launched a public consultation on when and how biometrics, facial recognition and similar technologies should be used, and what safeguards and oversight are needed.