London police facial recognition trial scanned 500,000+ faces and produced one false alert

A six-month trial of live facial recognition at London railway stations cost British Transport Police (BTP) £320,786 and scanned more than 500,000 faces, but it produced just one alert from the police watchlist. That alert turned out to be a false identification, with no arrest resulting directly from the technology during the trial period. The findings were reported by The Guardian, which reviewed a freedom of information document obtained by Liberty Investigates. The trial ran between February and July 2026 and involved 18 deployments at some of London’s busiest transport hubs. BTP has since extended the programme, raising fresh questions about cost, accuracy, privacy and whether live facial recognition is proportionate for use across a public transport network.How the trial workedLive facial recognition cameras compare faces passing through a particular location with images on a police watchlist. The system is designed to identify people who may be wanted by the police or subject to court restrictions. The cameras do not treat every person as a suspect. According to former biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner Fraser Sampson, the system’s use depends on the composition...