Police officers risk arresting innocent people, especially from ethnic minorities, if they treat inaccurate facial recognition data as evidence, an official report has found.
The report by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, published on Wednesday, covers only retrospective facial recognition.
The technology is seen as less controversial and less tricky to get right than live facial recognition, which is used in real time to find suspects.
Facial recognition is seen by police chiefs as the next big leap forward in crime fighting, and next huge threat to civil liberties by sceptics.
“Worse still, police aren’t even logging their use of retrospective facial recognition, meaning people could wrongfully become suspects in criminal investigations without even realising why they’ve been accused.