🔗 Share this article UK Police Forces Lobbied to Employ Biased Facial Recognition Technology Police forces across the United Kingdom effectively campaigned to use a facial recognition system acknowledged as discriminatory against females, youths, and members of minority ethnic backgrounds, following complaints that a more accurate version produced fewer potential suspects. The Technology in Practice British police use the national police database to conduct retrospective facial recognition searches. This process involves comparing a “probe image” of a person of interest against a repository of over 19 million mugshots to find potential matches. Acknowledged Discrimination The UK interior ministry admitted last week that the system was biased. This acknowledgment came after a review by the government's National Physical Laboratory found it misidentified people of Black and Asian heritage and women at significantly higher rates than white men. The Home Office said it “had acted on the findings”. “It prompts the issue of whether facial recognition only becomes useful if users accept biases in race and gender. Operational ease is a weak argument for disregarding fundamental rights.” Long-Standing Problem Internal documents reveal that this bias has been known about for over twelve months. Furthermore, law enforcement lobbied to reverse an earlier ruling that was designed to mitigate the problem. Police bosses were notified of the system's bias in late 2024. The government-ordered laboratory study concluded the system was more likely to suggest false positives for photos of women, Black people, and those under 40 years old. A Policy U-Turn In response, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) ordered that the accuracy setting required for possible hits be increased to a point where the disparity was greatly diminished. However, this decision was overturned the following month after forces complained that the modified technology was generating fewer “useful lines of inquiry”. NPCC documents show the stricter setting reduced the number of queries that yielded potential matches from 56% to a mere under 15%. Severe Disparities Although the authorities declined to specify what setting is now in operation, the latest NPL study discovered the system could produce false positives for Black women almost 100 times more frequently than for white women at specific configurations. The Home Office stated on these findings: “The testing found that in a specific scenarios the algorithm is more likely to incorrectly include some demographic groups in its match reports.” Balancing Utility and Fairness Outlining the effect of the temporary raise to the system's confidence threshold, the NPCC documents note: “The change significantly reduces the effect of discrimination across legally safeguarded attributes of ethnicity, age and gender but had a significant negative impact on operational effectiveness”. The papers further note that forces argued that “a previously useful tool now delivered results of questionable value”. Broader Rollout Plans Meanwhile, the government has opened a two-and-a-half-month consultation on its plans to expand the use of biometric scanning systems. Policing minister the relevant minister has described the tool as the “biggest breakthrough since DNA matching”. Criticism from Advisors and Monitors Abimbola Johnson, head of the independent scrutiny and oversight board for the national policing equality strategy, commented: “We observed scant discussion through equality strategy sessions of the facial recognition rollout despite clear relevance with the plan’s concerns. “This disclosure show once again that the pledges to combat discrimination policing has made through the race action plan are failing to be integrated into broader operations. Independent assessments have warned that new technologies are being rolled out in a landscape where ethnic inequalities, inadequate oversight and poor data collection already persist. “Any use of facial recognition must adhere to rigorous official guidelines, be subject to external review, and demonstrate it reduces rather than exacerbates racial disparity.” Official Statement A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Home Office takes the findings of the study seriously and we have already taken action. A new algorithm has been externally evaluated and acquired, which has no statistically significant bias. It will be tested early next year and will be subject to further assessment. “The foremost aim is ensuring public safety. This gamechanging technology will assist officers to apprehend and prosecute offenders. There is human involvement in each stage of the process and no arrest or charge would be pursued without specialist personnel meticulously examining the output.”