Londoners are concerned about the rollout of facial recognition technology (FRT) due to worries about errors, privacy and surveillance, recent polling has revealed. Meanwhile the British Transport Police (BTP) has admitted its trial at railway stations, which has been running for six months, has caught no serious offenders as a result of using the technology, though they say the threshold has been set deliberately high in terms of the offenders it’s being used to find. 72 per cent of respondents to the polling in Greater London want the public to have a say on how FRT is used, while two-thirds worry errors could get people into trouble unfairly. Another 62 per cent are concerned about how images of faces will be stored, while half feel there is a risk of racial bias. The polling, carried out by Opinium earlier this year, comes amid the start of live facial recognition (LFR) cameras being rolled out at some London Tube stations. It was first deployed at Victoria Underground station as part of a trial that started in February, and will rotate between different stations until November. While the majority of Londoners – 70 per cent – support the use of FRT by police forces, more than half say it should only be deployed where there are a clear public benefit and strong safeguards in place. Tony Kounnis, CEO of Face Int, which commissioned the research, said: “It’s far too simplistic to say that people in London are for or against facial recognition. This research shows that it’s far more nuanced than that – people have specific and understandable concerns, particularly the accuracy of the technology, their own privacy, and the security of biometric data. “Public trust cannot be overlooked; nor is the efficacy of the technology enough. Organisations deploying FRT need to