New oversight body planned
The Home Office has announced plans for new legislation governing police use of facial recognition technology, including the creation of an independent watchdog with powers to halt forces from using systems that fail to meet required standards.
The watchdog will oversee both current and future policing technologies, advising ministers on standards and emerging risks. The Home Office says any technology used by law enforcement must be rigorously and independently tested for bias or discrimination relating to age, gender or race.
A separate law will also be introduced setting out that police use of facial recognition must be “intelligence led and proportionate”, meaning it can only be deployed when officers have reason to believe wanted individuals may be present in a given area.
What prompted the change
The announcement follows a public consultation which, according to the Home Office, found strong public support for facial recognition and confidence in its effectiveness at catching offenders, but also identified calls for clearer safeguards around how extensively it is used.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said facial recognition has been “the biggest breakthrough for catching criminals since DNA matching”, but said clear laws were needed to make its use “watertight” so the public can trust the technology is applied responsibly.
The evidence cited
The Home Office points to a pilot of static live facial recognition cameras in Croydon, run between October 2025 and March 2026, which it says led to 173 arrests, including suspects wanted for rape, kidnap and sexual assault. The Metropolitan Police reported a 10.5% drop in overall crime in the area compared with the previous year, and a 21% decrease in offences linked to violence against women and girls.
The technology was also used at this year’s Notting Hill Carnival to check for registered sex offenders in the crowd. The Home Office says this led to 86 registered sex offenders being stopped, with seven of those arrested for breaching civil orders or notification requirements.
Industry reaction
Al Murray, Director of PoliceAI, welcomed the move, saying facial recognition is a “proven capability” that helps officers identify wanted offenders more quickly and focus resources on protecting victims. He said current legal requirements for facial recognition sit across “a vast patchwork system” and need consolidating into a clear, consistent set of laws, adding that technology adoption works best when matched with strong safeguards, transparency and public accountability.
What it means for UK forces and the public
The changes will affect every police force in the UK that deploys or plans to deploy facial recognition systems, as well as the technology suppliers that build them, who will need to show their products pass independent bias testing. For the public, the legislation is intended to set clearer limits on when and where the technology can be used, rather than leaving deployment decisions to individual forces under existing guidance.
The Home Office has not given a timetable for when the legislation or the new watchdog will be introduced. What to watch next is the publication of the bill itself, including how the watchdog’s enforcement powers will work in practice and which forces come under scrutiny first.