For too long, the deployment of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology in our streets has been treated by the Government as simply a “useful tool” to be managed by administrative guidance and toothless codes of practice. But as I have argued many times in the Lords, we are currently in a wild west of mass surveillance. We are witnessing the rapid rollout of a technology that can scan every face in a crowd and compare them in real time against a watchlist, effectively treating every citizen as a suspect in a permanent digital lineup.

The Liberal Democrats have been clear: this is not just another camera on a street corner. It is a fundamental shift in the relationship between the individual and the state. During the passage of the Crime and Policing Bill, -as we have done before -we moved to place vital statutory guardrails around this technology to ensure that innovation does not come at the expense of the rule of law.

The Legislative Void and the Crime and Policing Bill

The Government often points to a “comprehensive legal framework” of common law and data protection acts to justify LFR. Yet, as the Court of Appeal found in the Bridges case, the current framework contains “fundamental deficiencies” that leave far too much discretion to individual police officers.

As we pointed out in our response to the Government’s recent consultation on Consultation the legal framework for using facial recognition in law enforcement , the use of live facial recognition represents a seismic shift in the relationship between the individual and the State. It fundamentally alters the balance of power, turning our public spaces into permanent biometric lineups and treating every citizen as a potential suspect. Such a move should never have been made without an explicit democratic mandate and primary legislation authorized by Parliament.

To remedy this, the Liberal Democrats recently tabled an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill. This amendment sought to prohibit the use of LFR unless specific, stringent conditions are met—most importantly, requiring prior judicial authorization for any deployment. As I said, the police require a warrant to enter a home, they should surely require judicial approval to invade the privacy of thousands of citizens in a public square.

Furthermore, through another amendment, we also fought to protect the privacy of the millions of law-abiding citizens who never expected their driving license to become a biometric face print for a national police database. 

The Right to Protest and the Macdonald Review

In our recent submission to the Macdonald Review of public order offences, Liberal Democrat peers  reiterated the chilling effect that unregulated surveillance has on our democracy. We csaid, protest is not a threat to be managed; it is a right to be “respected, protected, and facilitated”.

Anonymity is a cornerstone of this right. Whether it is diaspora activists fearing transnational repression or survivors of domestic violence who simply wish to go about their lives unmonitored, the ability to disappear into a crowd is a basic safeguard of a free society. By layering unregulated facial scanning over new restrictions on face coverings, the Government is effectively shrinking the space for lawful dissent.

The Case for a Statutory Framework

We are often told that the technology is accurate and zero-biased. Yet independent audits tell a different story. Studies consistently show that facial recognition algorithms perform unevenly across different demographics, often misidentifying members of ethnic minorities.  This can lead to a fundamental violation of human rights and the erosion of community trust.

As we also said in our response to the consultation relying on broad common law policing powers to justify mass biometric surveillance is a legal fiction. This is not ‘traditional CCTV’; it is an automated, industrial-scale search of our very identities. In a democracy, suspicion should always precede surveillance, yet this technology inverts that vital principle, forcing innocent citizens to effectively prove their identity to a machine.

The Government needs to protect our traditional liberties. Relying on the College of Policing’s non-binding guidance is not good enough.

We need a root-and-branch review of our surveillance laws and a comprehensive legislative framework.  We must ensure that LFR is a targeted tool used under the rule of law—not a blanket surveillance net that chills our right to speak, to assemble, and to move freely in our own country.