Launched in Oxford city centre almost a year ago, the live facial recognition deletes data if you are not a suspect.
Home secretary Shabana Mahmood: “Facial recognition technology has been the biggest breakthrough for catching criminals since DNA matching, already helping police take thousands of dangerous criminals off our streets."
Laws will be introduced to Parliament under the Police Reform Bill to make sure police use of facial recognition is “intelligence-led and proportionate”, so it is only used when officers believe wanted people could be present in a certain area.
Big Brother Watch, which describes use of live facial recognition for mass surveillance as “Orwellian”, said: “The public have spoken loud and clear in the consultation, raising the alarm that facial recognition erodes our freedoms and privacy and is turning Britain into a surveillance state.
Former head of Counter Terrorism Policing, Neil Basu, said: “Like all new technologies, live facial recognition had a difficult start and the consultation was absolutely necessary to ensure this new technology was acceptable to the wider public.