South Wales Police will be deploying additional live facial recognition cameras in Cardiff during this year’s Six Nations rugby internationals as a further measure to keep city centre visitors safe.
A network of temporary cameras will be positioned across the city centre. The feeds from these cameras will be transmitted to Live Facial Recognition vans where officers will be alerted to anyone who is on a predetermined watchlist.
Officers will be deployed in response to an alert to confirm whether the person who creates the alert is who police need to speak to before taking appropriate action.
Cameras will be positioned at key points across the city centre, covering the main pedestrian entry points – effectively creating a zone of safety.
The Facial Recognition Technology will work in exactly the same way as traditional live deployments – with faces compared against a watchlist of individuals who are wanted for committing crime, banned from an area or someone who poses a risk to the public.
The ‘Zones of Safety’ concept has been funded by the Home Office and will be trialled by South Wales Police during the busy rugby international period which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city either to watch the game at the stadium or at pubs and bars.
While the cameras are similar in appearance to CCTV cameras, they do not record and in the event of no match, data is immediately and automatically deleted. These cameras will also be specifically marked as police cameras.
Assistant Chief Constable Trudi Meyrick said:
“The expansion of facial recognition cameras around the city centre really enhances our ability to keep visitors safe from harm.
“Our priority is to keep the public safe and this technology helps us achieve that. We understand the concerns which are raised about the use of facial recognition technology but it is important to remember that it has never resulted in a wrongful arrest and there have been no false alerts for several years as the technology and our understanding has evolved.”
Since a legal challenge of the use of the technology we have seen the development of the Surveillance Camera Commissioner’s Code of Practice and the College of Policing Authorised Professional Practice which sets out our obligations in the use of live facial recognition.
A series of trial deployments and the independent testing and evaluation of data confirmed that the technology does not discriminate on the grounds of gender, age or race, based on the responsible way in which facial recognition is used by South Wales Police.
ACC Meyrick said:
“The level of oversight and independent scrutiny means that we are now in a stronger position than ever before to be able to demonstrate that our use of facial recognition technology is fair, legitimate, ethical and proportionate.”
If the trial is successful, the concept could be used at other major events and locations in South Wales.
