Skip to main content
The Morning Star 2026 Conference
Met police must ditch ‘highly invasive’ facial recognition tech, BLM demands
Facial Recognition Technology in use in Leicester Square, London.

HUMAN rights groups, including Black Lives Matter UK, are demanding the new Metropolitan Police chief end his force’s use of “inaccurate and highly invasive” facial recognition technology. 

In a letter to Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, sent on his first day on the job today, several major organisations have called on him to ditch the tech, which they claim has an 87 per cent failure rate. 

The force began trialling the use of live facial recognition technology in the capital in 2016, before rolling out the software more widely earlier this year. 

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
A Eurostar e320 high-speed train heading towards France through Ashford in Kent
International Women’s Day 2026 / 7 March 2026
7 March 2026

Sexual harassment on Britain’s railways is rising sharply, according to the British Transport Police, yet too many women still feel reporting is futile. LYNNE WALSH asks why the burden of safety all too often remains on women themselves

A camera on top of a Live Facial Recognition (LFR) van during a demonstration of facial recognition technology by Surrey and Sussex Police at Surrey Police headquarters in Guildford, November 11, 2025
Policing / 13 November 2025
13 November 2025
A Palestinian girl struggles to obtain donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 9, 2025
Gaza Genocide / 10 May 2025
10 May 2025

ANSELM ELDERGILL draws attention to a legal case on Tuesday in which a human rights group is challenging the government’s decision to allow the sale of weapons used against Palestinians