Facial Recognition: Police Criticised for Using ‘Dystopian Tool’ at King’s Coronation

A camera being used during facial recognition trials at New Scotland Yard in London in January 2020. PA

Civil liberties campaigners have criticised the police for plans to use facial recognition software to scan crowds attending the coronation of King Charles III on Saturday.

Emmanuelle Andrews, policy and campaigns manager at Liberty, said: “Facial recognition is a dystopian tool that violates our rights and threatens our liberty.”

“We all have the right to go about our lives without being surveilled and monitored, but this weekend, anyone in the vicinity of the King’s coronation is at risk of having their face scanned by this oppressive technology,” she added.

The Metropolitan Police is mounting one of its biggest ever security operations, with 29,000 police officers deployed over the coronation weekend, including officers from neighbouring Thames Valley Police.

The Met issued a statement on Wednesday about Operation Golden Orb: “We intend to use facial recognition technology in central London. The watch list will be focused on those whose attendance on Coronation Day would raise public protection concerns, including those wanted for offences or have an outstanding warrant for arrest issued by the courts, or those under relevant offender management programmes in order to keep the public safe.”

It is thought the watch list could include individuals who have been monitored by the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre (FTAC), a special unit set up by the Home Office in 2006.

FTAC, which includes a team of forensic psychiatrists, is designed to manage “fixated individuals” who are dangerously obsessed with politicians, members of the Royal Family or other VIPs.

Andrews said: “This use of facial recognition will have a huge impact on all of our right to protest. We have already seen a huge crackdown on protest ahead of the coronation, with new measures brought in this week to further restrict the ways in which people can make their voices heard.”

‘Threat to Our Freedom’

“Now it’s likely that facial recognition will be used to monitor anyone who wants to exercise their right to protest, an extremely worrying development. Facial recognition is a threat to our freedom. It needs to be banned,” she added.

Liberty said they won a “ground-breaking case” in 2020 against South Wales Police’s use of facial recognition when a judge ruled that it breached privacy rights, data protection laws, and equality laws.

Earlier this week Security Minister Tom Tugendhat said the police and intelligence agencies were mounting a “very complex” security operation around the coronation, which will take place at Westminster Abbey and will be attended by hundreds of world leaders and other VIPs.

King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort during the Garden Party at Buckingham Palace ahead of the coronation of King Charles III and the Queen Consort at Buckingham Palace in London, England, on May 3, 2023. Yui Mok/WPA Pool/Getty Images

Among the guests will be French President Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos of the Philippines and the deputy leader of China, Han Zheng.

New laws allowing the police to curb protests came into force this week but Tugendhat said the coronation would “showcase our liberty and our democracy.”

Republic—a campaign group calling for the abolition of the monarchy—said hundreds of its supporters would protest in Trafalgar Square on Saturday.

But Big Brother Watch’s legal and policy officer, Madeleine Stone, said: “This Orwellian technology may be used in China and Russia but has no place on the streets of Britain, least not during the coronation.”

“The hundreds of thousands of innocent people attending this historic event must not be treated like suspects in a line-up and subjected to biometric police identity checks,” she added.

Stone added: “If this dangerously inaccurate technology is deployed at the coronation it is unlikely to have any policing benefits but would have a serious cost to police resources and the public’s privacy rights, meaning many people will be wrongly flagged as criminals and forced to prove their innocence.”

“Live facial recognition is not referenced in a single UK law, has never been debated in Parliament, and is one of the most privacy-intrusive technologies ever used in British policing,” she said.

‘Serious Chilling Effect’

Stone said the use of live facial recognition would have a “serious chilling effect on the right to free speech.”

She concluded: “This dystopian technology should not be anywhere near the coronation. The home secretary should urgently ban police use of live facial recognition.”

Critics point to previous false positive identifications when the Met has deployed the technology, which included a 14-year-old black schoolboy in uniform and a French exchange student who had only just arrived in the country.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan said this week: “We want Londoners and visitors coming to the city to enjoy this historic and momentous occasion safely and securely.”

“On Coronation Day we will have the largest one day mobilisation of officers seen in decades with just over 11,500 officers on duty. The weekend promises to be a spectacular celebration and the Met police is honoured to be policing such an internationally important event across the capital,” Adelekan added.

The Metropolitan Police told The Epoch Times by email that they have no additional comment regarding FTAC’s input to the watchlist.

PA Media contributed to this report.