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Police forces across the UK effectively campaigned to deploy a facial recognition system acknowledged as biased against females, young people, and individuals from minority ethnic backgrounds, after complaining that a more accurate version produced a reduced number of potential suspects.

The Technology in Practice

UK forces utilize the police national database (PND) to conduct searches using historical face recognition. This procedure involves matching a reference photograph of a suspect against a database of more than 19 million custody photos to identify possible hits.

Acknowledged Discrimination

The UK interior ministry conceded last week that the technology was biased. This acknowledgment came after a study by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) determined it misidentified people of Black and Asian heritage and women at significantly higher rates than Caucasian males. The ministry said it “took steps on the findings”.

“It prompts the question of whether this technology only becomes effective if users accept discrimination in ethnicity and sex. Operational ease is a poor argument for disregarding basic freedoms.”

Long-Standing Problem

Official papers reveal that this bias has been known about for over twelve months. Furthermore, law enforcement argued to overturn an earlier ruling that was designed to address the problem.

Police bosses were notified of the algorithmic discrimination in late 2024. The government-ordered NPL review found the system was had a higher probability to suggest incorrect matches for photos of females, Black people, and those under 40 years old.

A Reversed Decision

In reaction, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) mandated that the confidence threshold required for possible hits be increased to a point where the disparity was significantly reduced.

However, this directive was reversed the following month following complaints from police that the adjusted system was generating fewer “useful lines of inquiry”. NPCC documents indicate the stricter setting cut the proportion of searches that yielded possible identifications from 56% to a mere 14%.

Severe Disparities

Although the authorities refused to say what setting is currently used, the latest independent review discovered the system could produce false positives for women of Black heritage nearly a hundred times more frequently than for white women at certain settings.

The Home Office stated on these findings: “Our evaluation identified that in a specific scenarios the algorithm is more likely to incorrectly include some population segments in its search results.”

Operational Effectiveness vs. Bias

Describing the impact of the brief increase to the system's accuracy setting, the police records state: “The change greatly lessens the effect of discrimination across legally safeguarded attributes of race, age and sex but had a substantially detrimental effect on operational effectiveness”. The documents add that police units complained that “a once effective tactic returned outcomes of limited benefit”.

Wider Implementation Proposals

Meanwhile, the government has opened a two-and-a-half-month consultation on its proposals to widen the use of facial recognition technology. Policing minister the relevant minister has labeled the technology as the “most significant advance since DNA matching”.

Criticism from Advisors and Monitors

Abimbola Johnson, chair of the advisory panel for the national policing equality strategy, commented: “We observed very little discussion through race action plan meetings of the facial recognition rollout even with clear relevance with the strategy's goals.

“This disclosure show yet again that the anti-racism commitments the police has made via the race action plan are failing to be integrated into broader operations. Our reports have cautioned that new technologies are being rolled out in a landscape where racial disparities, weak scrutiny and poor data collection already persist.

“Any use of this technology must adhere to strict national standards, be independently scrutinised, and demonstrate it diminishes rather than compounds racial disparity.”

Official Statement

A government representative stated: “We takes the conclusions of the report seriously and we have implemented changes. A new algorithm has been externally evaluated and acquired, which has no statistically significant bias. It will be tested early next year and will be undergo evaluation.

“The foremost aim is ensuring public safety. This revolutionary tool will support officers to apprehend and prosecute offenders. There is officer review in each stage of the process and no further action would be pursued without specialist personnel meticulously examining the results.”