Big Brother Watch Responds to Facial Recognition Powers in New Crime Bill

Responding to powers proposed in the Government’s Crime and Policing Bill that will have worrying implications for privacy rights, Madeleine Stone, Senior Advocacy Officer at Big Brother Watch said:

“It’s disturbing to see the Government is reheating the Conservative’s abandoned plans on areas of the Bill that most threaten privacy rights, including granting all police forces access to our driving licence photos, opening the door to the creation of a massive facial recognition database.

“More than 50 million Britons hold driving licences in order to travel and have not given permission for the Government to turn our photos into mugshots. The Bill allows the Government to grant police officers extraordinary powers to identify and track anyone with a driving licence, at the click of a button. Not only would this be an unprecedented breach of privacy, but would also put innocent citizens at risk of misidentifications and injustice. 

“With powers to ban face masks at protests and the introduction of new categories of warrantless searches, this Bill is stacked with worrying new powers. Privacy safeguards are urgently needed, and the Government must abandon any plans to subvert our driving licences into a vast police database.”

The Conservative Government attempted to introduce these powers in the Criminal Justice Bill, leading to public backlash. Then-Policing Minster Chris Philp stated that the powers “allow police and law enforcement, including the NCA, to access driving licence records to do a facial recognition search, which, anomalously, is currently quite difficult.”

ENDS

NOTES:

• Clause 95 of the Crime and Policing Bill gives the Secretary of State powers to make regulations which grant all police forces, the National Crime Agency, and the Independent Office for Police Conduct access to “driving licence information” for “policing or law enforcement”. This includes facial images, which can be used for facial recognition searches.
• Over 50 million UK citizens hold full or provisional driving licences.
• Spokespeople are available for interview – please contact 07730439257 or [email protected].
• Big Brother Watch is at the forefront of the UK campaign to stop live facial recognition surveillance – our campaign page, with details of our latest research and investigations is available at StopFacialRecognition.org.

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