Shabana Mahmood’s announcement that facial recognition is to be rolled out across the nation is no vague statement of aspiration. Part of wider policing reforms and backed by the promise of fifty more camera-topped vans, the Home Secretary’s announcement signals the government’s determination to make mass surveillance part of daily life. Combined with the current consultation on facial recognition, it also confirms that Britain is becoming a surveillance state without any real thought or debate.

Mass surveillance isn’t compatible with a healthy society

The focus of the public consultation on a new legal framework for the use of biometric surveillance technologies by law enforcement agencies is framed in ‘when did you start beating your wife?’ terms. It assumes that the people of a liberal democracy have already consented to a national surveillance system which will profoundly change the relationship between state and citizen.

Over the past decade, police have increasingly used live facial recognition to identify possible criminals. Since cameras surveilled the crowd at the Notting Hill Carnival in 2016, facial recognition vans have been appearing in various parts of London and other cities, with the first permanent cameras installed in Croydon. Over the past year in England and Wales, police have scanned the faces of over seven million passers-by.

All this has happened amid rumblings of concern and in something of a regulatory vacuum. In a slight of hand which glosses over the lack of democratic process, the Home Office presents the consultation as the beginnings of a remedy. More candidly, it admits that the purpose of a new legal framework for........

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