Security News > 2020 > August > Police face-recog tech use in Welsh capital of Cardiff was unlawful – Court of Appeal
In a shock ruling today, the UK Court of Appeal has declared that South Wales Police broke the law with an indiscriminate deployment of automated facial-recognition technology in Cardiff city centre.
Despite police promises that his image and data derived from it would have been instantly deleted if he was not a person of interest to them, he filed a lawsuit saying that police broke human rights and data protection laws.
Judges declared that police violated Bridges' ECHR Article 8(1) rights because internal police policies "Leave too broad a discretion vested in the individual police officer to decide who should go onto [a] watchlist".
South Wales Police also failed to properly write a legally required data protection impact assessment when it deployed the cameras, and also broke the public sector's legal duty to eliminate discrimination and harassment because the NEC-made tech produced higher positive match rates for female and non-white suspects' faces.
The police manager also claimed a number of arrests had been made by constables using AFR without saying how many had led to charges or convictions, information that is vital to assess whether a new policing technology does in fact make the public safer or help to lower crime rates.