UK Expands Facial Recognition Van Fleet Across England and Wales
The British government on Wednesday confirmed a nationwide rollout of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) vans as part of its new crime-reduction strategy, according to a PTI report. The initiative aims to help police identify and arrest individuals linked to serious offences such as sexual crimes, robberies, and knife-related attacks.
The deployment is part of the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, a broader public safety programme designed to ensure that every community across England and Wales benefits from dedicated, accessible officers focused on tackling local crime.
Ten additional LFR vans will be allocated across seven police forces: Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Surrey and Sussex, Thames Valley, and Hampshire. Officials stressed that the vans will operate under strict guidelines issued by the College of Policing and will only be used when there is credible intelligence to justify their presence.
“These new facial recognition vans give police advanced, targeted tools to apprehend dangerous offenders,” the Home Office said in a statement.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer underscored the need for visible, community-level policing. “Nobody should feel unsafe leaving their home. From today, every neighbourhood in England and Wales has named, contactable officers to address local crime,” he said.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced that, alongside the vans, 3,000 new neighbourhood police officers will be recruited to tackle issues such as illegal off-road biking, shoplifting, and street theft. “We will provide police with the resources they need. Facial recognition will be deployed selectively to locate sex offenders or high-priority suspects still at large,” she said.
The Home Office noted that LFR technology has already helped in arresting individuals involved in rape, domestic abuse, knife crimes, and robbery, as well as in finding sex offenders violating court orders. It has also strengthened security at major public gatherings such as festivals and concerts.
Each LFR van will be staffed with trained officers to verify any matches generated by the system. The facial recognition software, independently tested by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), has reportedly shown no bias relating to ethnicity, age, or gender at the settings currently used by UK police.
