- Devon and Cornwall Police are deploying live facial recognition technology for the first time at the Boardmasters Festival in Newquay this weekend, an event expected to attract 50,000 attendees.
- A police van equipped with a biometric camera will be positioned in Killacourt, scanning faces against a 'watch list' of thousands of known criminals, suspects and individuals with sexual harm prevention orders or suspected of drug dealing.
- Chief inspector Peter Shabytah, leading the operation, insists the technology is not 'mass surveillance' but a targeted effort to ensure public safety, particularly to prevent drug-related harm to young festival-goers, with non-matching scans deleted instantly.
- The use of live facial recognition has drawn criticism from liberty groups, including Big Brother Watch, which previously lost a High Court challenge against the Metropolitan Police over concerns about arbitrary or discriminatory deployment.
- Despite ongoing concerns and the absence of a full legal framework, the government plans to significantly increase the number of police vans equipped with this technology across England and Wales, from 10 to 50.
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