Published on 29 September 2026
Six-month trial used almost 100 police hours and led to just one – incorrect – alert
by Phoebe Davis for Liberty Investigates and Daniel Boffey for The Guardian
A six-month trial of live facial recognition (LFR) technology in London’s railway stations cost more than £320,000 and almost 100 hours of police officers’ time but resulted in no arrests and just one alert, which turned out to be incorrect.
More than half a million faces were scanned between February and July this year in some of the capital’s busiest transport hubs during the British Transport Police (BTP) trial of the surveillance technology, which aimed to help catch offenders and those breaching court orders.
A freedom of information document obtained by Liberty Investigates shows equipment hire and police staffing for the 18 deployments across the trial cost £320,786. Yet there was only one match against a watchlist of suspects, which turned out to be an incorrect identification, also known as a ‘false positive’.
Last month the BTP announced it was extending the trial of LFR for a further four months and expanding the deployments to include London Underground stations.
When Transport for London (TfL) announced its support for the extension of the trial, it said LFR technology “will target and identify people on police watchlist at key stations chosen for maximum impact” and would “specifically tackle violence against women and girls, whose travel behaviours are shaped by experiences of sexual harassment and sexual offences”.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Labour MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill, said: “Tackling violence against women and girls on public transport must be an urgent priority, but that means investing in what actually works; not spending more than £320,000 on a measure, which when piloted, resulted in zero arrests and a single false alert.
“Live facial recognition technologies are a serious invasion of our privacy. The government should be suspending their rollout until there are stronger safeguards in place, including a proper legal framework.”
More than half of police forces in England and Wales have now deployed LFR on British streets, according to an analysis by Liberty Investigates.
The Metropolitan Police and London Mayor’s office announced this summer that it is planning to install fixed LFR cameras in the West End. Sadiq Khan has since confirmed it will be used on the newly pedestrianised Oxford Street.
Live facial recognition technologies are a serious invasion of our privacy. The government should be suspending their rollout until there are stronger safeguards in place, including a proper legal framework
A recent report from the Joint Committee for Human Rights that called on the government to introduce a new law to address the threat of artificial intelligence to human rights identified the rollout of live facial recognition technology as a “particularly clear example of risk”.
Fraser Sampson, the former Biometrics & Surveillance Camera Commissioner for the UK, who is now a non-executive director of Facewatch, a company which operates facial recognition systems in shops, said the police needed to show that the use of the technology was proportionate.
He said: “There are many variables and all need to align: the choice of location, times of day, make up of the watchlist and likelihood of people being present and many more.
“We know the technology works but using it in supermarkets to deter shoplifters and prevent attacks on staff is very different from deploying it to catch people on a public transport network.
“Success in a shop means no such people coming in. Success for the police trying to catch people means people being caught. In that respect the trial doesn’t appear to have been very fruitful.
“Everything depends on the police watchlists; if you’re not on a watchlist, the live FRT cameras do not ‘see’ you and they don’t retain your image in the same way as CCTV cameras.
“However, they are processing special category personal data and the technology must be used in a way that is appropriate, proportionate and necessary. It’s for the police to show how any deployment meets those criteria and – as the ICO has recently reported – for their oversight boards to hold them firmly to account in doing so.”
A BTP spokesperson said it had launched the LFR pilot to “to understand how the technology could most effectively support the identification of wanted offenders and individuals who may pose a risk to passengers and staff”.
They added: “During these deployments, officers have made a number of associated arrests, including for assault, theft, possession of an offensive weapon, breach of a criminal behaviour order and public order offences, as well as locating individuals wanted by the courts and other police forces. As these arrests did not result directly from an LFR alert, they are not included within LFR performance data.
“Throughout the pilot, we have continued to refine how the capability is deployed within the railway environment. This has included developments to deployment locations, operating procedures, equipment and watchlist construction.
“A particularly important point is that watchlist growth has been deliberate, controlled and aligned to BTP policy. We began with a more limited watchlist whilst ensuring data quality, governance and safeguarding arrangements were robust.”
A version of this article was published in The Guardian. Click here to read it.