Britain’s Court of Appeal has ruled that the use of facial-recognition technology by South Wales Police is unlawful.

The case was taken by UK civil liberties group Liberty and Ed Bridges from Cardiff, who was scanned twice by the technology. In September last year, London’s High Court had rejected their challenge, saying the current legal framework for the technology’s use was adequate.

'No clear guidance'

Today (11 August), however, the Court of Appeal found that there had been interference with Mr Bridges’ rights under the European Convention on Human Rights and other legislation, as there was no clear guidance on where the system could be used, and who could be put on a ‘watchlist’.

It also found that the South Wales force had not taken enough account of the potential discriminatory impact of facial-recognition technology, and did not carry out an adequate assessment of the data-protection implications of the system’s use.

The Court of Appeal did find, however, that use of the technology was “a proportionate interference” with privacy rights.

'Major victory'

Liberty lawyer Megan Goulding described the ruling as “a major victory in the fight against discriminatory and oppressive facial recognition”. She called for the technology to be banned.

But South Wales Police also welcomed the judgment, saying the testing of the technology in the courts was a “welcome and important step”.

Its chief constable Matt Jukes said that international concern about potential bias in algorithms had grown, and acknowledged that more work was needed to ensure there was no risk of breaching the force’s duties on equality.