Custody photos 'too poor' for facial recognition software

Dr Plastow said: "While carrying out this assurance review we were informed about the insufficient quality and resolution of Scottish images on the Police Scotland Criminal History System, which affects a portion of custody images captures between 2019-2024. "This means a sizeable portion of custody images are not searchable under PND facial search functionality. "This gap could mean that people who have had their custody image previously taken, are not being detected on future probe images uploaded by Police Scotland, which could lead to crimes not being detected." The report stated that the force said a "software issue" was causing the custody images to be captured at a lower than recommended minimum size. The images were then being additionally compressed using a technique that left them unsuitable for use with the PND.