“Participants expressed an overarching concern that the ways in which facial recognition is used, and the purposes it is used for, could keep expanding,” it said.
“Given low levels of trust in police, participants feared that once normalised, safeguards around facial recognition technology use could gradually weaken.
To overcome the clear trust deficit, participants made a number of suggestions for how police facial recognition can be effectively regulated.
In terms of what functions such an oversight body should have, participants suggested it could conduct pre-deployment approvals every time police want to use facial recognition, have strong powers to enforce against misuse, and conduct audits.
In summarising the study, authors noted that while participants did not entirely reject the use of facial recognition by police, “they made clear that confidence in facial recognition will depend on its deployment having clear limits, fair use, strong accountability and independent oversight”.