Spotlight 06 Informed


Facial recognition systems compromise our sources


Unregulated police technology is a risk to journalism. Tim Dawson visits Heartbreak Hotel to find out why


Each September, Porthcawl is alive with white jumpsuits, improbable sideburns and gyroscopic hips as 40,000 Elvis impersonators descend on the Welsh resort. “Arrests are very rare, the whole event is like a huge Elvis party,” says Peter Phillips organiser of the 20-year-old annual event. Even Cliff Richard fans enjoy a warm welcome, he adds. For the past three years, however, as the


“Elvises” have encouraged the jailhouse to rock, South Wales Police (SWP) officers have discreetly filmed revellers and utilised facial-recognition soſtware to siſt the resulting feed for ‘undesirables’. And while combing the tribute acts for


terrorists probably risks no more than ridicule, the potential threat to journalism of the unregulated use of such technology is all too real. “As soon as it became possible to use phone data to identify individuals, police


forces started using them to search for journalists’ sources,” says NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet. “Te cases of Mark Bulstrode, Tom Newton-Dunn and Sally Murrer are but a few of many instances. Today, facial recognition is almost entirely without legal regulation. I would be amazed if journalists have not already been targeted.” Stanistreet is not alone in raising concerns. Paul Wiles, the government’s Biometrics Commissioner says: “We desperately need fresh legislation that regulates use of these second-generation biometric identification, and those rules need to enshrine journalistic rights to protect sources.” His counterpart the Surveillance Camera Commissioner Tony Palmer is similarly worried. “Te first court case [relating to the use of facial recognition by the SWP] is now subject to appeal. It will ask is whether there is a legal framework to use that technology in the first place. Te court has said that it could be decided on a case-by-case basis, but the common law can be quite fluid.” Whatever the outcome of the current election, the issue may struggle to gain traction. Against this backdrop, a multi-party campaign calls on UK police forces and private security companies to immediately stop using live facial recognition for public surveillance. Supported by MPs (at the time of writing) David Davis, Diane Abbot, Jo Swinson and Caroline Lucas, it is also endorsed by numerous civil liberties groups, academics and lawyers. Te clamour for regulation has been joined by the Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham. “Te absence of a statutory code that speaks to the specific challenges posed by LFR will increase the


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