Nottinghamshire Police will deploy marked vans equipped with facial-recognition cameras to scan faces in public and compare them against a "watch list" of wanted, banned or missing people. Any potential matches will be verified by officers on site and, the force says, raw scans will be deleted within seconds. The force emphasises the system is intended for identification and safeguarding, will be used "fairly and proportionately," and is not a replacement for officers.
Nottinghamshire Police to Deploy Marked Facial-Recognition Vans Under Tight Controls
Facial recognition vans will be clearly signed and results posted online, police said [Nottinghamshire Police]
Nottinghamshire Police will begin deploying clearly marked vans fitted with live facial-recognition cameras at public locations across the county, the force has announced. The vans will scan people passing by and compare faces against a pre-populated "watch list" of individuals who are wanted for offences, subject to banning orders, or reported missing.
How the System Will Work
The force says any potential match flagged by the system will be checked and verified by officers on site before any action is taken, and that the raw scans will be deleted within seconds. Nottinghamshire Police described a number of safeguards intended to protect privacy and said the technology will be used only "fairly and proportionately" and in ways appropriate to each deployment area.
Police hope the vans will also act as a deterrent to crime [Nottinghamshire Police]
Purpose And Oversight
Senior officer Det Supt Will Henley, who is leading the project, said the vans are intended to identify people already on the watch list or to help locate vulnerable or missing people, rather than to track the movements of the public. He added:
"This new technology is not interested in tracking your movements. It is designed to identify those faces we have inputted into the system who are wanted for crimes or in need of safeguarding such as locating missing people. The technology will always be used fairly and proportionately to the area it is deployed. This will not replace police officers."
Public Concerns And Transparency
Henley acknowledged that the cameras may raise public concern. The force says it will publish the results of deployments on the Nottinghamshire Police website and that the system has already been used by other UK police forces, which they say found it a useful investigative tool. The force also stated that the software does not discriminate on the grounds of gender, age or race, a point it presents as part of its safeguards.
Nottinghamshire Police emphasised that marked vans also serve as a visible deterrent to criminality and that rolling out the technology will not reduce frontline officer numbers. The force has committed to verifying matches locally and to transparency about where and when the vans are deployed and the outcomes of those operations.
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