Trial of live facial recognition in London stations leads to a false positive and no arrests

More than half a million faces were scanned in some of the capital's busiest transport hubs during the trial. More than half a million faces were scanned in some of the capital's busiest transport hubs during the trial. Tue 29 Sep 2026 05.48 EDTLast modified on Tue 29 Sep 2026 07.53 EDT A six-month trial of live facial recognition (LFR) technology in London's railway stations that cost more than £320,000 and almost 100 hours of police officers' time led to one false match against a watchlist of suspects and no arrests. More than half a million faces were scanned between February and July this year in some of the capital's busiest transport hubs during the British Transport Police (BTP) trial of the surveillance technology, which aimed to help catch offenders and people breaching court orders. A freedom of information document obtained by Liberty Investigates and shared with the Guardian shows that equipment hire and police staffing for the 18 deployments across the trial cost £320,786 and led to only one alert on a watchlist, which turned out to be an incorrect identification, also known as a false positive.