Facial recognition trial at railway stations cost £320k and led to just one alert... which was wrong

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Facial recognition trial at railway stations cost £320k and led to just one alert...

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British Transport Police spent more than £320,000 on a six-month live facial recognition (LFR) trial across London's railway stations, scanning upwards of half a million faces yet failing to produce a single arrest.The pilot programme ran from February to July this year, deploying the surveillance technology 18 times at some of the capital's busiest transport hubs.Freedom of information documents obtained by Liberty Investigates and shared with The Guardian revealed that the entire exercise generated just one watchlist alert - which proved to be a false positive.Equipment hire and officer staffing consumed £320,786 and nearly 100 hours of police time across the trial period.The technology was intended to identify wanted criminals and individuals in breach of court orders.Despite these underwhelming results, BTP announced last month that it would extend the pilot by four months and broaden its scope to encompass London Underground stations.Since the extension began, three confirmed...

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