Live facial recognition cameras will be deployed across London, with the city's Metropolitan Police announcing today that the technology has moved past the trial stage and is ready to be permanently integrated into everyday policing. The cameras will be placed in locations popular with shoppers and tourists, like Stratford's Westfield shopping center and the West End, reports BBC News. Each camera will scan for faces contained in "bespoke" watch lists, which the Met says will predominantly contain individuals "wanted for serious and violent offences." When the camera flags an individual, police officers will approach and ask them to verify their identity. If they're on the watch list, they'll be arrested.

Facial recognition is increasingly used as way to access your money and your devices. When it comes to policing, it could soon mean the difference between freedom and imprisonment. Faces can be scanned at a distance, generating a code as unique as your fingerprints. This is created by measuring the distance between various points, like the width of a person's nose, distance between the eyes and length of the jawline. Facial recognition systems check more than 80 points of comparison, known as'nodal points', combining them to build a person's faceprint.