Police to use live facial recognition technology

North Yorkshire Police has said it plans to begin using live facial recognition cameras in a move it says will "help protect vulnerable people and tackle serious crime".

The technology works by scanning people's faces as they pass and comparing them to an authorised watchlist.

Several police forces, including West Yorkshire Police, have already begun using the cameras despite concerns from some groups over potential infringements on people's rights.

A force spokesperson said the technology would be deployed "in carefully selected, intelligence‑led locations".

Temporary Dept Ch Const Ben Moseley, who is leading on the roll-out of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) for the force, said: "Policing is evolving rapidly, and emerging technologies such as LFR offer enhanced opportunities to prevent harm, safeguard communities and identify high‑risk offenders more swiftly."

LFR works by measuring a person's key features, such as the width of their nose, the distance between their eyes, and the shape of their cheek bones.

Those features are then compared with the faces of persons of interest stored on a police watchlist.

North Yorkshire Police said images that do not match the watchlist are deleted "immediately and permanently".

The watchlist itself is deleted at the conclusion of each deployment, they added.

LFR was first used in Yorkshire last year, when vans were deployed to Leeds' busiest shopping street.

At the time, critics pointed out that innocent people would also have their faces scanned.

Concerns have also been raised about the potential for false matches after 10 people - of which eight were black - were falsely alerted by the system between September 2024 and September 2025.

North Yorkshire Police said any deployments would only take place where there was "a clear policing purpose and a strong intelligence case to do so".

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