Stop scanning us all with facial recognition

The government is about to unleash the “largest ever” roll out of live facial recognition surveillance.

At the same time, shops across the UK are wiring up facial recognition cameras to their doorways and creating secret watchlists of their customers.

Facial recognition is spiralling out of control in the UK and there are no clear laws in place to protect our privacy.

Unlike CCTV, facial recognition doesn’t just record what you do, your face becomes a barcode in the same way as your fingerprint or your DNA.

We must stop this.

The Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, recently revealed her chilling vision of building a “panopticon” where “the eyes of the state can be on you at all times.”

Your passport photo is now being searched by police facial recognition systems, even if you have done nothing wrong and your driving licence photo will be next.

If we don’t set clear limits now, our rights to privacy, free speech, protest and access to information are all at risk.

Live facial recognition also has documented issues with bias, last year 80% of people who were misidentified by these cameras by the Met Police were black.

We all want criminals to be caught but that should not mean that all of us are treated like suspects and put at risk of criminal accusations.

If thousands of us sign this petition, we can can put an end to uncontrolled facial recognition surveillance by police and shops.