🔗 Share this article British Police Forces Campaign to Employ Biased Facial Recognition Technology Police forces across the United Kingdom effectively campaigned to deploy a facial recognition system known to be discriminatory against females, young people, and individuals from ethnic minority groups, after complaining that a more accurate version generated a reduced number of investigative leads. The Technology in Practice British police use the national police database to carry out retrospective facial recognition searches. This process involves matching a “probe image” of a suspect against a database of over 19 million mugshots to identify potential matches. Admitted Bias The Home Office admitted last week that the system was biased. This acknowledgment followed a review by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) determined it misidentified Black and Asian people and females at much greater frequency than Caucasian males. The ministry said it “took steps on the findings”. “It prompts the issue of whether this technology only becomes effective if users tolerate biases in race and sex. Convenience is a weak argument for overriding fundamental rights.” Known Issue Internal documents show that this discriminatory flaw has been known about for more than a year. Furthermore, law enforcement lobbied to reverse an earlier ruling that was designed to mitigate the problem. Senior officers were notified of the system's bias in late 2024. The government-ordered NPL review concluded the system was more likely to produce false positives for photos of women, individuals of Black ethnicity, and those aged 40 and under. A Reversed Decision In reaction, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) ordered that the confidence threshold required for possible hits be increased to a level where the disparity was greatly diminished. However, this directive was reversed the following month after forces complained that the modified technology was generating a lower number of “investigative leads”. Internal records indicate the higher threshold cut the proportion of queries that yielded potential matches from 56% to a just under 15%. Profound Inequalities Although the authorities refused to say what setting is now in operation, the recent NPL study found the system could generate false positives for women of Black heritage nearly a hundred times more often than for white women at specific configurations. The ministry stated on these findings: “Our evaluation identified that in a limited set of circumstances 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 police records state: “The change greatly lessens the impact of bias across legally safeguarded attributes of race, generation and gender but had a significant negative impact on operational effectiveness”. The papers further note that police units complained that “a once effective tactic now delivered outcomes of limited benefit”. Wider Implementation Proposals Meanwhile, the government has opened a two-and-a-half-month public review on its plans to expand the use of facial recognition technology. Policing minister Sarah Jones has described the technology as the “most significant advance since genetic fingerprinting”. Criticism from Advisors and Monitors Abimbola Johnson, chair of the advisory panel for the police race action plan, commented: “There was very little consideration through equality strategy sessions of the facial recognition rollout even with clear relevance with the plan’s concerns. “This disclosure demonstrate once again that the anti-racism commitments policing has made via the equality initiative are failing to be integrated into broader operations. Our reports have cautioned that new technologies are being implemented in a context where racial disparities, inadequate oversight and faulty information gathering already persist. “Any use of facial recognition must meet strict national standards, be independently scrutinised, and prove it diminishes rather than compounds ethnic bias.” Home Office Response A government representative said: “We takes the conclusions of the study seriously and we have already taken action. A updated software has been independently tested and procured, which has no statistically significant bias. It will be tested in the coming months and will be undergo evaluation. “The foremost aim is protecting the public. This gamechanging technology will support officers to apprehend and prosecute offenders. There is human involvement in every step of the process and no arrest or charge would be taken without trained officers carefully reviewing the output.”