‘Incredible’ pilot of fixed facial recognition cameras leads to arrest of woman wanted for 20 years
Live facial recognition cameras scan the biometrics of each person who walks past, comparing them with a list of suspects.
The Metropolitan Police could be set to deploy more fixed controversial facial recognition cameras in the capital after a trial saw over 170 arrests in just six months.
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Among them was a woman who had been wanted for more than two decades.
The pilot, which attached the powerful kit to lampposts in Croydon - one of London’s crime hotspots – led to an arrest, on average, every 35 minutes.
The force says it has seen a 10.5% reduction in crime in the area as a result, with the static cameras making it easier to deploy the technology.
They replaced the need for large vans carrying the equipment every time.
Read more: The High Court says facial recognition is lawful. That doesn't make it right, writes Dean Dunham
Lindsey Chiswick, from the Met, who also leads on the national policy surrounding the technology, told LBC the result was “incredible”.
“We’ve had some really significant results over the past 24 deployments with over 170 arrests for a whole range of offences.
“And 20% of those were for violence against women and girls.”
Asked if this meant they’d be rolled out more widely, she added: “The results are really, really good. It’s too early to say right now but I expect they are likely to go back on quite soon.”
When turned on, live facial recognition cameras scan the biometrics of each person who walks past them.
The technology then compares them with a watchlist of suspects, specially compiled for that deployment, and alerts nearby officers to any potential matches.
Those officers are told to verify a match before they step in or make an arrest.
Croydon, in South London, is one of the Met’s target areas for the cameras, due to the high volume of crime reported there.
Among the people arrested during the pilot, which included 24 deployments between October 2025 and March 2026, were suspects in kidnap, rape and serious sexual assault investigations.
One 36-year-old woman detained had been on the Met’s wanted list for more than 20 years, after she failed to appear at court to face assault allegations in 2004.
A 41-year-old man was also arrested who had been wanted for rape, which reportedly took place in November in Croydon.
Sir Mark Rowley, the Met Commissioner, last month won a High Court battle against campaigners trying to stop the wider rollout of the facial recognition tech.
He told LBC: “The public of London, they want us to do this. 80% are supportive of it.
“I know there are one or two pressure groups who are concerned about it but the majority of the public want this.
“They can see we're locking up thousands of paedophiles, rapists, dangerous, violent men, people wanted by the courts, and it's protecting them and they're grateful for that.”
The Big Brother Watch group vowed to appeal the court’s ruling, alongside Shaun Thompson, a youth worker, who had wrongly been identified as a wanted man by the cameras, outside London Bridge Station.
He had been mistaken for his brother, who, at the time, was on bail for a suspected violent offence.
Silkie Carlo, Director of Big Brother Watch, said: “There has never been a more important time to stand up for the public’s rights against dystopian surveillance tech that turns us into walking ID cards and treats us like a nation of suspects.
“Innocent people deserve clear and strict protections from live facial recognition cameras, which should be reserved for the most serious cases rather than used to scan millions of people, and that is what the appeal will seek to achieve.”
Police have been using facial recognition since 2017 without any specific legislation having been passed to set parameters for its use.
The High Court ruled that the Met’s deployments complied with data protection, human rights and privacy laws.
The government is yet to respond to a public consultation on what regulations could be introduced, including for private operators, like retailers, who choose to make use of the tech.
Speaking to LBC moments after his High Court win, Sir Mark Rowley warned politicians against implementing “clumsy regulation”.
“This is a new capability. It's really got rolling seriously in London over the last couple of years because of the fantastic, innovative work of my team. Clumsy regulation could strangle that and all the benefits we're getting from it could be killed off.”
During the six-month pilot of static cameras in Croydon, Scotland Yard says more than 470,000 people walked past the static cameras and there was only one false alert.
This resulted in “a brief interaction with officers, who swiftly identified the alert was false and allowed the person who had been stopped to continue on their way”, the force said.
It added that no one has ever been arrested as a result of a false alert from live facial recognition.
The Home Office has backed a wider rollout of facial recognition cameras to other police forces in the UK, following successful results from London.
It is planning to increase the number of vans available for mobile deployments in England and Wales from 10 to 50.
Policing minister Sarah Jones said last month: “This technology puts dangerous rapists and murderers behind bars – and I question any group who call that uncivil.”
Addressing concerns about “dystopian surveillance”, Lindsey Chiswick told LBC the introduction of static cameras would not mean that people’s faces are always being scanned.
“Absolutely not,” she said.
“This is a really important point. They’re only turned on when there are officers there to respond to them.
“Similar to the vans, officers will always be there to make the final decision to tell if it’s a match.”