UK Police: 'Innocent people' on unregulated photo database
Police forces in England and Wales have uploaded up to 18 million "mugshots" to a facial recognition database. This is despite a court ruling it could be unlawful. They include photos of people never charged, or others cleared of an offence, and were uploaded without Home Office approval.
Photos of "hundreds of thousands" of innocent people may be on the database, an independent commissioner said.
The database complies with the Data Protection Act the police insisted.
It comes despite a ruling in 2012, when two people went to the High Court to force the Metropolitan Police to delete their photos from databases. The judge warned forces should revise their policies in "months, not years".
Met Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe told the BBC that since the court case, his force had stopped putting images on the national database until the law had been clarified.
"So the broad concern is - are we keeping images of people who aren't convicted, and are we using them?" he said. "I don't think this is against the law but of course we always want to catch criminals." He added that he would look into the matter.
Biometrics Commissioner Alastair MacGregor QC said he was concerned about the implications of the system for privacy and civil liberties. MacGregor said police had been warned to put rules in place regarding the use of police mugshots - but had not done so.
He said he recognised the potential value of the database to the police, but warned senior officers had rushed in without considering all the implications. "These are important issues and it does seem to me surprising that they have not been addressed more carefully," he said.
Chief Constable Mike Barton, of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said forces had to stay up-to-date with new technology. "Everybody is very keen that the police enter the cyber world," he said. "I hear much criticism of policing that we're not up to speed and it does come as a surprise to me that we're now being admonished for being ahead of the game."
However, the use of the system has been criticised by some MPs and David Davis, the former Tory shadow home secretary, said that police forces should not "misuse the data in this way. There is a mind-set here, which is flawed…It's quite understandable, police always want more powers, but I'm afraid the courts and parliament say there are limits," he said. "You cannot treat innocent people the same way you treat guilty people."
