Thames Valley Police launches Live Facial Recognition know-how

Thames Valley Police launches Live Facial Recognition know-how

December 29, 2025

Live Facial Recognition (LFR) know-how was launched within the Thames Valley for the primary time final week, making its debut in Oxford metropolis centre

The pressure is including two fully-equipped LFR vans to its capabilities, which is able to help officers in tackling crime and holding communities protected. The vans had been stationed on Cornmarket Street on Monday 22 December, as a part of a nationwide rollout of the know-how to focus on excellent suspects and scale back crime.

Following this primary deployment, the know-how will probably be used throughout the Thames Valley incessantly to assist policing, enabling officers to find individuals of curiosity in ongoing investigations shortly and effectively.

Officers will create a bespoke ‘watchlist’ earlier than every deployment, including photographs of individuals they want to communicate to with hyperlinks to the realm, together with these wished on warrants and people evading court docket proceedings. If a person is just not on the watch listing, then their face can’t be matched.

The know-how can scan crowds to establish suspects, individuals of curiosity and other people reported lacking at a pace and stage of accuracy that can’t be achieved by an individual.

Every van is operated by specifically educated officers who will double verify and confirm the data every time an individual within the space matches with a picture, which is able to set off an alert. Officers on the bottom might then select to interact with that particular person, and the place vital might take motion. This might embrace arrest in some circumstances, or safeguarding in others, comparable to within the case of lacking individuals. This course of ensures that there’ll at all times be a human making the choice round what intervention, if any, will probably be taken.

Any biometric templates that don’t set off an alert are routinely deleted inside seconds, that means that no private information is saved.

The vans will probably be clearly marked and officers will probably be readily available to reply any questions and spotlight how the know-how helps us to find and arrest individuals of curiosity.

Police forces throughout the nation have already seen success with their very own reside facial recognition deployments, with lots of of arrests for offences together with rape, home abuse, knife crime, theft and of intercourse offenders for breaching their situations.

Matthew Barber, Police and Crime Commissioner for Thames Valley, stated: “The launch of reside facial recognition know-how in Thames Valley gives officers with a further device to chop crime and catch criminals. 

“We have seen the profitable use of this know-how in different police pressure areas throughout the nation, and I sit up for seeing the impression the rollout has in bettering security inside our communities. 

“Whilst using this know-how is broadly welcomed by most individuals, there are comprehensible considerations by some. I’ve labored carefully with the police to make sure that all the required safeguards are put in place to guard privateness and the one individuals who ought to have something to concern from using reside facial recognition are criminals searching for to focus on individuals and property in our neighborhood. 

“It is important that the police explain the use of this tactic and ensure widespread consent from the public. The use of any technology just provides a tool to the police. It is still the men and women of Thames Valley Police who will use their professional judgment and put themselves in harm’s way to protect the public.”

For extra details about our use of reside facial recognition go to, which does embrace incessantly requested questions –