British Law Enforcement Agencies Lobbied to Employ Discriminatory Facial Recognition Technology

Law enforcement agencies across the UK effectively campaigned to use a face scanning system known to be discriminatory against females, youths, and individuals from minority ethnic backgrounds, following complaints that a less biased version generated a reduced number of investigative leads.

How the System Works

UK forces use the police national database (PND) to carry out searches using historical face recognition. This procedure involves comparing a reference photograph of a suspect against a database of over 19 million mugshots to find potential matches.

Admitted Bias

The Home Office admitted last week that the technology was flawed. This admission followed a review by the government's National Physical Laboratory determined it misidentified people of Black and Asian heritage and females at much greater frequency than Caucasian males. The ministry stated it “took steps on the findings”.

“It prompts the question of whether facial recognition only becomes effective if users accept discrimination in ethnicity and gender. Operational ease is a poor argument for overriding fundamental rights.”

Long-Standing Problem

Official papers show that this discriminatory flaw has been known about for more than a year. Furthermore, police forces argued to overturn an earlier ruling that was intended to address the problem.

Police bosses were notified of the algorithmic discrimination in late 2024. The government-ordered laboratory study concluded the system was had a higher probability to produce incorrect matches for photos of females, individuals of Black ethnicity, and those aged 40 and under.

A Reversed Decision

In reaction, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) ordered that the accuracy setting required for possible hits be increased to a point where the bias was significantly reduced.

However, this decision was reversed the following month after forces complained that the adjusted system was producing fewer “investigative leads”. Internal records show the stricter setting reduced the number of searches that yielded potential matches from over half to a mere under 15%.

Severe Disparities

Although the Home Office and NPCC refused to say what setting is now in operation, the latest NPL study found the system could generate false positives for Black women almost 100 times more frequently than for Caucasian women at certain settings.

The ministry stated on these findings: “The testing identified that in a limited set of circumstances the algorithm is has a greater tendency to wrongly flag some demographic groups in its search results.”

Operational Effectiveness vs. Bias

Outlining the effect of the temporary raise to the system's accuracy setting, the police records note: “The change significantly reduces the effect of discrimination across protected characteristics of race, generation and sex but had a significant negative impact on operational effectiveness”. The papers further note that forces complained that “a once effective tactic returned results of questionable value”.

Broader Rollout Plans

Meanwhile, the UK administration has launched a ten-week consultation on its plans to expand the use of facial recognition technology. Policing minister the relevant minister has labeled the technology as the “most significant advance since DNA matching”.

Criticism from Advisors and Monitors

The chair of a police oversight board, chair of the independent scrutiny and oversight board for the national policing equality strategy, commented: “There was very little consideration through race action plan meetings of the technology deployment despite clear relevance with the strategy's goals.

“These revelations show once again that the anti-racism commitments policing has undertaken via the race action plan are failing to be integrated into broader operations. Our reports have warned that new technologies are being implemented in a landscape where ethnic inequalities, weak scrutiny and poor data collection continue to exist.

“Any use of this technology must adhere to rigorous official guidelines, be subject to external review, and demonstrate it diminishes rather than compounds ethnic bias.”

Home Office Response

A government representative said: “The Home Office takes the findings of the study with utmost gravity and we have implemented changes. A updated software has been independently tested and acquired, which has demonstrated no measurable discrimination. It will be tested in the coming months and will be subject to further assessment.

“The foremost aim is protecting the public. This gamechanging technology will assist police to apprehend and prosecute offenders. There is human involvement in each stage of the procedure and no arrest or charge would be taken without specialist personnel meticulously examining the output.”