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Police scanned thousands of Beyoncé fans in Cardiff with live face recognition cameras as campaigners warn of a potential descent into ‘China-like surveillance’.
Fans flocked to the Principality Stadium on Wednesday night to see the megastar perform on the first UK date of her Renaissance world tour.
South Wales Police said earlier this week that the technology would be used in Cardiff city centre, but not at the stadium, to ‘support’ the concert by identifying wanted individuals and ensuring safeguarding.
In the past, police use of live facial recognition (LFR) in England and Wales had been restricted to special operations such as football games or the Coronation, when police were keeping a close eye on protesters.
South Wales Police said they would use the facial recognition cameras on Wednesday ‘to support policing in the identification of persons wanted for priority offences… to support law enforcement… and to ensure the safeguarding of children and vulnerable persons’.
![Pictured: Beyonce performs onstage during the opening night of the Renaissance world tour at Friends Arena on May 10, 2023 in Stockholm, Sweden](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/05/18/20/71151191-12099811-image-a-13_1684439558395.jpg)
Pictured: Beyonce performs onstage during the opening night of the Renaissance world tour at Friends Arena on May 10, 2023 in Stockholm, Sweden
‘Facial Recognition is not a condition of entry and it will not be on the stadium footprint,’ a spokesperson said.
The technology has come under fire from human rights campaigners.
The Surveillance Camera watchdog Fraser Sampson said more work is needed to check for bias in the use of the technology.
He warned that rules governing the surveillance cameras could be damaged by a planned new law, and that without them we are at risk of China-like surveillance.
European lawmakers recently showed their support for an effective ban on live face recognition cameras in public spaces.
Live facial recognition cameras compare faces with a ‘watch list’, by using Artificial Intelligence.
The watchlist could be made up of those wanted for crimes, for example.
South Wales Police said that for people who are not on the watch list, the biometric data won’t be stored and it will be immediately deleted.
The CCTV footage is recorded and kept for up to 31 days.
![Pictured: Police using the facial recognition technology (File Photo)](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/05/18/20/71151201-12099811-image-a-12_1684439517563.jpg)
Pictured: Police using the facial recognition technology (File Photo)
South Wales Police also say the decision to stop someone is made by officers rather than the technology.
Officers check to see if the alert from the cameras using the live footage of the street is a match for the wanted person.
Police Scotland said it does not use the technology and the Metropolitan Police said it would publicise any plans in advance.
At the Coronation the technology was used to scan 68,000 faces against a watchlist of more than 10,000 faces, The Guardian reported.
On Wednesday, the Metropolitan Police offered more detail about its use to MPs on the Commons Home Affairs Committee.
South Wales Police had previously been successfully challenged over its use of face recognition cameras, in an important court ruling.
Cardiff resident Ed Bridges, whose face was scanned in the city centre and then again at an anti-arms protest, won an Appeal Court victory against the police force.
In 2020, judges ruled the use of the technology by them, since 2017, was unlawful.
However, after the case, police continued to trial the cameras, at a Speedway event and at a Wales versus Italy rugby match, which scanned 108,540 faces, resulting in two arrests.
![Pictured: The Beyoncé concert at Cardiff's Principality Stadium](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/05/18/21/71154399-12099811-image-a-14_1684440672603.jpg)
Pictured: The Beyoncé concert at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium
This data, along with data from the Metropolitan Police, was used in a review by the National Physical Laboratory last month, which noted that there was a ‘substantial improvement’ in accuracy, with a false match of one in 6,000 people who pass the camera.
Police also argued that the review showed the technology could be used in a way so that it was not discriminatory against gender and race.
Katy Watts, a lawyer for the human rights group, Liberty, who acted for Mr Bridges has criticised the latest deployment of the technology.
‘What the police won’t admit is that facial recognition doesn’t actually make people safer… it entrenches patterns of discrimination in policing,’ she said.
‘They’re violating the privacy of thousands of people to make only potentially one or two very minor arrests.’
Ms Watts said she did not know if it adequately incorporated safeguards on where it is used and who ends up on the watch list, as the court judgement required.
‘Seeing the police continue to violate our freedoms by rolling it out again is deeply concerning and the only safe thing to do is ban the technology altogether’, Ms Watts added.
![A police facial recognition van in front of the Cardiff City Stadium for the Cardiff City v Swansea City Championship match on January 12, 2020 in Cardiff, Wales. South Wales Police said earlier this week that the technology would be used in Cardiff city centre, but not at the stadium for the Beyoncé concert](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/05/18/21/71154411-12099811-image-a-15_1684440735769.jpg)
A police facial recognition van in front of the Cardiff City Stadium for the Cardiff City v Swansea City Championship match on January 12, 2020 in Cardiff, Wales. South Wales Police said earlier this week that the technology would be used in Cardiff city centre, but not at the stadium for the Beyoncé concert
A report published on Tuesday revealed that Policing Minister Chris Philp ‘expressed his desire to embed facial recognition technology in policing and is considering what more the government can do to support the police on this’.
The Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner Professor Fraser Sampson said ‘the intent now from the Home Office [is] to embed facial recognition across policing and law enforcement’, but he added that widespread use was still some way off.
In Professor Sampson’s view, bias was still a concern.
He said: ‘It’s a long way off saying we’ve addressed issues of bias, either technically, or in terms of public perception of it.’
He said that more work was required to strengthen public confidence as the technology was rolled out across the UK.
However, Professor Sampson believes there is a role for it in policing, but it has to be proportionate.
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