GOVERNMENT failures have allowed police to exploit legal loopholes to store photographs of innocent people for use with face-recognition systems, MPs warned yesterday.

The Commons science and technology committee said it was “alarming” that officers were uploading images taken of suspects in custody to the police national database even if they were released without charge or later found not guilty.

The government had failed to respond strategically to the growing use of biometric data, leaving a “governance gap” that has allowed the police to begin collecting biometric data without proper oversight.