Facewatch uses cameras to check faces against a watch list and, despite widespread concern over the technology, it has already been introduced in hundreds of high street shops and supermarkets.
The use of facial recognition has provoked fierce criticism over its impact on privacy and human rights, with the European Union seeking to ban the technology in public spaces through proposed legislation.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Senior officials at the Home Office secretly lobbied the UK’s independent privacy regulator to act “favourably” towards a private firm keen to roll out controversial facial recognition technology across the country, according to internal government emails seen by the Observer.
The heavily redacted correspondence also reveals that, even before the alleged threat, an internal February ICO briefing into its Facewatch investigation – codenamed Operation Kegon 3 – indicates that the Home Office had made it plain to the regulator that facial recognition to combat retail crime was being pushed aggressively by Philp.
“The Home Office have flagged that LFR [live facial recognition] in a commercial setting for crime detection/prevention purposes is an area that is high on the minister’s agenda,” states an executive summary of progress in the ICO investigation into Facewatch, weeks before it officially concluded.
The ICO concluded its investigation into Facewatch on 31 March – several weeks after the Home Office warning – with a blog explaining that no further regulatory action was required against the firm because it was “satisfied the company has a legitimate purpose for using people’s information for the detection and prevention of crime”.
“This disclosure is utterly damning and appears to show that Chris Philp intervened in the data regulator’s investigation of a private facial recognition company he was having meetings with,” said Mark Johnson, advocacy manager of Big Brother Watch.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “As the documents show, the minister made it clear that he was not seeking to influence any ICO investigation but to inform them of the government’s views about the seriousness of retail crime and abuse of staff.
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