Real-life Robocops catch suspects each 90 minutes in large new AI crackdown
Facial recognition AI triggered 1,317 arrests last year – including of 450 suspected violent offenders – but critics say millions are getting dragged into the ‘net of surveillance’ by the ‘Orwellian tech’
Real life Robocop triggers arrest every 90 minutes(Image: Getty Images)
Face-scanning Robocops catch suspects every 90 minutes. Around 9.25 million faces in England and Wales were probed by the AI-linked cameras last year, leading to 1,317 arrests.
Of those, 450 were suspected violent offenders. Facial recognition cameras are usually deployed from surveillance vans to compare features of passers by against biometric profiles of people who are missing or accused or convicted of crimes.
The Metropolitan Police, which runs the most live facial recognition, said most people on its watchlist were wanted by the courts – a fifth in connection with ‘serious crime’.
When the system alerts officers to a match they confirm the person’s identity using photographic ID or mobile fingerprint scanners.
Deployments are common at ‘crime hotspots’ including football and international rugby matches, concerts and air shows.
Police believe facial recognition is key to clamping down on e-bike crime(Image: PA)
At last year’s Notting Hill Carnival in west London there were 61 facial recognition-related arrests including one man who allegedly stabbed someone five times with a machete.
The systems were deployed by 14 of Britain’s 45 police forces last year – including in Hertfordshire, Merseyside and Suffolk for the first time.
Their use has rocketed. US cops deployed more than 5,000 during the World Cup.
In the UK they were only used 63 times in 2023 and 246 in 2024. The 369 deployments last year scanned 78 faces a minute.
In January, the government announced plans to increase the number of surveillance vans from 10 to 50 which will be available to all forces.
The Met deployed the tech 231 times last year, scanned 4.2 million faces and arrested 1,133 people suspected of crimes, in breach of bail conditions or wanted by the courts.
Dejean South, 25, escaped detection for more than a year after a 2024 break-in before he was arrested in Woolwich, south-east London after being identified by facial recognition. In April last year he was sentenced at the Old Bailey to 22 months’ in jail suspended for two years for aggravated burglary and breaching bail.
A Met spokesman said: “These figures highlight why live facial recognition is such a crucial tool in tackling the most violent offenders – including those who harm women and girls.”
CCTV AI Facial Recognition Camera (Image: Getty Images)
Of 2,800 nationwide alerts last year 18 were misidentifications.
Jasleen Chaggar, senior legal and policy officer at Big Brother Watch, said ‘millions of law-abiding citizens’ were being ‘caught in the net of surveillance’.
“With more than a dozen innocent people wrongly identified, it’s clear that we all have something to fear from this Orwellian tech,” she added.
