Kensington and Chelsea (Parliament Politics Magazine) – The Met Police has defended its decision not to use Live Facial Recognition at a Tommy Robinson rally, weeks after deploying it at Notting Hill Carnival.
The Unite the Kingdom (UTK) rally, which saw 24 arrests for offenses including affray, violent disturbance, assault, and criminal damage, was the only protest in London to date to deploy LFR, according to Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley.
An estimated 150,000 people attended the Kensington and ChelseaKensington And Chelsea News event, where 26 officers were hurt that day, four of them critically.
The Met had to justify their use of LFR at the 2025 Notting Hill Carnival last month after anti-racism and civil liberties organizations demanded that they stop using it. Additionally, the force has been forced to re-explain itself after it was not utilized at the far-right rally.
But Sir Mark said LFR, which has been used by the force to make over 1,000 arrests since last January, is only deployed where there is an “intelligence basis to do so”.
“Look at the number of stabbings, the two murders, and everything that went on at Carnival last year, and the tragic history of violence,”
he told the London Policing Board earlier today (Tuesday, September 16).
“Carnival is an event which has hundreds of thousands of people turn up to celebrate culture. But sadly, hundreds of people turn up set on criminality. And there’s a pattern of that, and it turns to violence. And that puts the hundreds of thousand of good people at risk.
That intelligence case has been built up over multiple years. There are dangerous people who are going to undermine this event for the good majority, and that needs tackling. That’s a very clear intelligence basis to deploy it.”
Some 61 arrests were made at Notting Hill Carnival this year after LFR identified around 100 “people of interest”, the Met has said.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Matt Ward, the policing commander for the festival, added:
“Live Facial Recognition proved particularly successful, with the technology helping officers to identify people of interest over two days who, without it, would likely have been able to go unnoticed in the busy crowds.”
The force said the use of LFR helped lead to a reduction in serious violence. In contrast, Sir Mark claimed that the previous protest held by the organisers of the UTK rally “didn’t have any trouble of any significance” so there was no grounds to deploy LFR.
The Met is “cautious” about rolling it out unnecessarily at protests due to concerns over curbing “freedom of speech and the rights expressed under the Human Rights Act”, he added.
“We have to act without fear or favour in the middle,” he told the Policing Board. “Now, as I said earlier, it is not for us to pass an ethical judgment on protesters at any protest. And we’ve had many different flavours and types of protests in London over the last few years. We will focus on illegality, not the ethics of it.
I don’t rule out [using LFR] at a protest where there is lot of intelligence about serious violence. We have to be even more careful about using it at a protest because of what may be sensed about it having a chilling effect.”
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) stated last month that “the Metropolitan Police’s current policy falls short of this standard” and that technology should only be used in a necessary and proportionate manner.
In order to police the UTK rally on Saturday, the Met sent out 1,000 officers, and they also recruited an additional 500 policemen from other forces, including those in Devon, Cornwall, Nottinghamshire, and Leicestershire.
How can protesters challenge police use of facial recognition?
In instances of misidentification or unlawful photo/image capture, demonstrators may file complaints with the police service regarding their use FRT and to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which is responsible for the regulation of data privacy and biometric use.
Furthermore, individuals may seek legal advice to explore whether they have a human rights or data/respectful person claim regarding the use of FRT. There have been legal cases that have challenged the lawfulness of police use of FRT and public protests on the basis that it infringes on privacy and rights.
Groups like Liberty are campaigning against the police use of FRT and are demanding increased levels of oversight and regulation of its use. You can more publicly support those organizations and their campaigns to spread awareness and advocate for policy change.