The police in Scotland have tripled the use of retrospective facial recognition over the last five years jumping from just under 1,300 in 2018 to nearly 4,000 in 2022.
The rising trend has continued during 2023 with more than 2,000 searches carried out in the first four months of the year, according to data obtained by a freedom of information request by UK investigative journalism organizations Liberty Investigates and The Ferret.
The trend has been rising in other parts of the country. In 2014, the total number of searches using retrospective facial recognition by all police forces in the UK amounted to just 3,360. By 2022, that number jumped to 85,158, according to UK Home Office data.
The Scottish police ranks fourth in the use of the technology in the UK. The leader is the London Metropolitan Police which accounted for 30 percent or 27,677 searches last year.
The UK police have been using retrospective facial recognition to match faces captured with CCTV cameras with millions of images stored in the Police National Database. The practice has proved controversial as the database still contains many images of people who were released without charge.
Police in Scotland operate a distinct policy from other UK forces, only uploading custody images to the database once an individual has been charged with a crime and removing images of those found innocent after 6 months.
Facial recognition use by the police has been a target of criticism from some lawmakers, non-governmental organizations and policy experts.
Hellbound and Down 