Police expand use of facial recognition technology - Published Police have used live facial recognition (LFR) for the first time in Devon. The technology, which scans faces in crowds from a live camera feed and checks them against a watchlist of wanted people, was used in Exmouth town centre at the end of August, officers said. Sgt Angela Galasso, from Devon and Cornwall Police, said the technology was probably "scanning far more faces than a police officer ever could", adding: "It's a tool. One of the many in our armour which help us to do our job." Any people identified by LFR still needed to be verified by humans, police said. Human rights group Liberty has called for legislation to clarify how police forces can use such systems. Last month the police used the same technology near the Boardmasters festival site in Cornwall. Galasso said a camera van had been deployed in response to anti-social behaviour, violent incidents and shoplifting in the town. She said: "We've got technology on board which is running with a predetermined watchlist of people. There's about 8,000 on the list. "The alert comes up, you're scanning the picture held on our system and the live picture. You're looking at that similarity scoring. "If it falls within a certain point, we then ask our uniformed officers to engage with that person and a second verification happens." The BBC spoke to shoppers on The Strand in Exmouth, where the cameras were used. "If you've done nothing wrong, then you shouldn't be afraid of it," said Denise Newman, from Budleigh Salterton. Paul Miller, from Exmouth, said he was "in favour of facial recognition with strict safeguards". Police said images of people who were not of interest would be "automatically and permanently deleted within seconds" and the force would