Facial recognition cameras too racially biased to use at Notting Hill carnival, say campaigners

Exclusive: Letter to the Met says technology ‘unfairly targets community that carnival exists to celebrate’

The Met commissioner should scrap plans to deploy live facial recognition (LFR) at next weekend’s Notting Hill carnival because the technology is riven with “racial bias” and subject to a legal challenge, 11 civil liberty and anti-racist groups have demanded.

A letter sent to Mark Rowley warns that use of instant face-matching cameras at an event that celebrates the African-Caribbean community “will only exacerbate concerns about abuses of state power and racial discrimination within your force”.

The Runnymede Trust, Liberty, Big Brother Watch, Race on the Agenda, and Human Rights Watch are among those who claim the technology “is less accurate for women and people of colour”.

The demand comes just days after ministers ramped up the deployment of vans fixed with facial recognition technology to nine forces across England and Wales.