The police will be able to run facial recognition searches on a database containing images of Britain's 50 million driving licence holders under a law change being quietly introduced by the government. Should the police wish to put a name to an image collected on CCTV, or shared on social media, the legislation would provide them with the powers to search driving licence records for a match. The move, contained in a single clause in a new criminal justice bill, could put every driver in the country in a permanent police lineup, according to privacy campaigners. Facial recognition searches match the biometric measurements of an identified photograph, such as that contained on driving licences, to those of an image picked up elsewhere. The intention to allow the police or the National Crime Agency (NCA) to exploit the UK's driving licence records is not explicitly referenced in the bill or in its explanatory notes, raising criticism from leading academics that the government is "sneaking it under the radar".

This week we learned that ICE has searched millions of American driver's license photos, using facial recognition tools; the aim - to look for immigrants who are in this country illegally. Now privacy rights supporters and immigration advocates are calling for more transparency and oversight. But as NPR's Joel Rose reports, some version of all this has happened once before. JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: Dozens of protesters gathered in Manhattan yesterday outside the office of a tech company that's growing but still unknown to many Americans. UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: You hear that, Palantir?