UK civil society wins legal challenge against facial recognition deployment in South Wales

Liberty, a UK-based civil society group, has announced having won a ground-breaking legal challenge against police use of facial recognition technology (FRT). The Court of Appeal agreed with Liberty’s submissions, on behalf of a Cardiff resident, and found the South Wales Police’s use of FTR breaches privacy rights, data protection laws, and equality laws. According to TechCrunch, the South Wales Police deployed an automated facial recognition system known as AFR Locate on around 50 occasions since 2017, in conjunction with a watchlist of between 400-800 people. The court ruled that the legal framework and policies used by the police did not provide clear guidance on where AFR Locate could be used and who could be put on a watchlist.