Court finds some fault with UK police force's use of facial recognition tech – TechCrunch

Civil rights campaigners in the UK have won a legal challenge to South Wales Police's (SWP) use of facial recognition technology. The win on appeal is being hailed as a "world-first" victory in the fight against the use of an "oppressive surveillance tool", as human rights group Liberty puts it. However the police force does not intend to appeal the ruling -- and has said it remains committed to "careful" use of the tech. The back story here is SWP has been trialing automated facial recognition (AFR) technology since 2017, deploying a system known as AFR Locate on around 50 occasions between May 2017 and April 2019 at a variety of public events in Wales. The force has used the technology in conjunction with watchlists of between 400-800 people -- which included persons wanted on warrants; persons who had escaped from custody; persons suspected of having committed crimes; persons who may be in need of protection; vulnerable persons; persons of possible interest to it for intelligence purposes; and persons whose presence at a particular event causes particular concern, per a press summary issued by the appeals court.