Cases › biased or discriminatory › LR-2026-0355
UK police forces lobbied to keep a biased facial recognition system
Preliminary Why: 1 report: The Guardian · subject to change · 1 independent report
Status: no action reported
No source states: loss or records, developer and model, agent tool, could do, deployer.
Severity moderate: test met: data of others (custody photos) searched, with bounded scope stated as a limited set of circumstances; no affected count stated
UK police forces use the Police National Database to run retrospective facial recognition searches, comparing a probe image of a suspect against more than 19 million custody photos for potential matches. A review by the National Physical Laboratory, commissioned by the Home Office, found the system misidentified Black and Asian people and women at significantly higher rates than white men. In September 2024 police bosses were told of the bias, and the National Police Chiefs’ Council ordered a higher confidence threshold that significantly reduced it. That decision was reversed the following month after forces complained the system was producing fewer investigative leads. The Home Office has said it acted on the findings and that a new algorithm has been independently tested and procured. Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman said safeguards were reissued through training and guidance to PND users.
What happened
What was done
No source states an action or fix.
Risks
Read from the sources; not yet reviewed by a person.
Controls
Not yet read for controls. Controls that mitigate the primary risk:
ApplicationBias testing · Risk assessment per deployment · Output filtering and redaction
Evidence
No source states: what went wrong, what it reached or did, how it was caught, when it happened, when it was found, how many records were exposed, the direct loss, a count of the other parties affected, any court case, the cause, what set it off, what was done.
Show the full account: 1 items from the primary sources
What happened, in order
- September 2024 Police bosses were told the system was biased.
Show every field, with its source and grade
The AI system
What happened
Impact
Context
Notes on gaps
The Home Office and NPCC claims of human review and safeguards are reported as claims and are not verified. The Home Office's new algorithm test was scheduled for early next year and its result is not reported.
LR-2026-0355 · version 1 · published 2026-11-01 after automatic checks; not yet checked field by field by a person · JSON