🔗 Share this article UK Police Forces Lobbied to Employ Discriminatory Facial Recognition Systems Police forces across the UK effectively campaigned to deploy a facial recognition system known to be biased against women, young people, and members of ethnic minority groups, following complaints that a less biased version generated fewer investigative leads. How the System Works UK forces use the national police database to conduct searches using historical face recognition. This process entails comparing a “probe image” of a person of interest against a repository of more than 19 million custody photos to identify potential matches. Admitted Bias The UK interior ministry admitted last week that the technology was flawed. This acknowledgment came after a study by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) determined it misidentified Black and Asian people and women at much greater frequency than Caucasian males. The ministry stated it “took steps on the findings”. “This raises the issue of whether this technology only becomes useful if users tolerate discrimination in race and sex. Convenience is a weak argument for disregarding fundamental rights.” Long-Standing Problem Official papers show that this bias has been recognized for over twelve months. Furthermore, law enforcement argued to overturn an earlier ruling that was designed to address the problem. Police bosses were notified of the algorithmic discrimination in late 2024. The Home Office-commissioned laboratory study found the system was more likely to suggest false positives for images depicting women, individuals of Black ethnicity, and those aged 40 and under. A Reversed Decision In response, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) ordered that the confidence threshold required for potential matches be increased to a level where the bias was significantly reduced. However, this directive was overturned the next month after forces complained that the adjusted system was producing fewer “useful lines of inquiry”. Internal records indicate the stricter setting cut the number of searches that yielded potential matches from over half to a just under 15%. Profound Inequalities Although the Home Office and NPCC declined to specify what threshold is now in operation, the latest NPL study discovered the system could generate incorrect matches for Black women almost 100 times more frequently than for white women at certain settings. The ministry stated on these results: “Our evaluation found that in a specific scenarios the software is has a greater tendency to incorrectly include some population segments in its match reports.” Operational Effectiveness vs. Bias Outlining the effect of the temporary raise to the system's accuracy setting, the police records note: “This adjustment greatly lessens the effect of discrimination across protected characteristics of ethnicity, generation and gender but had a substantially detrimental effect on police efficiency”. The documents further note that police units argued that “a previously useful tool returned results of limited benefit”. Wider Implementation Proposals Meanwhile, the UK administration has launched a ten-week public review on its proposals to widen the use of facial recognition technology. The minister for police the relevant minister has labeled the technology as the “biggest breakthrough since DNA matching”. Criticism from Advisors and Monitors The chair of a police oversight board, head of the independent scrutiny and oversight board for the police race action plan, commented: “There was scant consideration through equality strategy sessions of the facial recognition rollout even with obvious cross-over with the strategy's goals. “This disclosure demonstrate once again that the anti-racism commitments policing has undertaken through the race action plan are not being translated into broader operations. Independent assessments have warned that new technologies are being rolled out in a landscape where racial disparities, weak scrutiny and faulty information gathering already persist. “Any use of this technology must meet strict national standards, be independently scrutinised, and prove it reduces rather than exacerbates racial disparity.” Home Office Response A Home Office spokesperson said: “We treat the conclusions of the report seriously and we have implemented changes. A updated software has been independently tested and acquired, which has no statistically significant bias. It will be trialled in the coming months and will be subject to further assessment. “The foremost aim is ensuring public safety. This revolutionary tool will support police to put criminals and rapists behind bars. There is officer review in each stage of the procedure and no arrest or charge would be taken without trained officers meticulously examining the output.”